


Even in August

by delsicle



Category: Dunkirk (2017), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Historical Inaccuracy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Pre-War, Smut, War, World War II, inaccuracy in general, minor supernatural elements, what could be interpreted as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:09:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delsicle/pseuds/delsicle
Summary: Alex and Louis fell in love in an apple orchard.The next few years are not so kind.





	1. Childhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaerie/gifts).



> Oh, wow. I’m writing this author’s note at one in the morning, I just finished editing this fic in full, and I’m kind of a mess because, well, what’s new. But hello. Thank you for being here. I’m so excited to be part of the first Alex/Louis fic exchange, and to have gotten such a lovely recipient! I received some very lovely prompts, but I decided to go with the third and most in-depth one. I won’t list it all here, because, well, it’s very in-depth and pretty much spoils the whole plot, since I followed the plot quite closely. I’ll put it at the end for all that are interested. 
> 
> Other than that, I’ve included notes and trigger warnings at the beginning of every chapter so you’re prepared for anything that might be confusing or upsetting for you. Thank you to my rockstar of a beta who still puts up with my shit, any mistakes are 100% mine and not hers. Also shout out to my group chats who yell at me, and for Lauren, who suggested the title of this fic. I love you all, and I love you, person reading this. Let’s dive in. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Chapter Triggers: period typical homophobia, including references to region-based homophobia. There is allusion to underage sex (where Alex is 16 and Louis is 18) but it is not explicit at all. The first explicit sex scene in this fic takes place when Alex is 18 and Louis is 20. Also!!! This fic is versatile. They both bottom. Please go somewhere else if you think that would compromise your enjoyment of this fic, I'm really not interested in hearing comments solely about what positions they're in. Thank you. 
> 
> Alex's POV

Spring was Alex’s favorite time of the year.

The warmth that surrounded everything always made his work that much more bearable. He didn’t have to wake up when it was still dark, put on two coats and his rubber boots, and then go out to the barn to make sure the cows are alright for the day before he could go to school.

Instead, when he woke up on yet another spring morning in the midst of April, the sun was already shining when he got up, and he just needed a light shirt as he went out. No one was awake yet; both his parents had taken to sleeping in for another precious hour ever since he took up the role of doing the morning chores on his own. When he got back inside, there would be eggs and bread and something sweet to eat with his tea already ready for him.

Spring mornings were perfect, and even more predictable.

But when he opened the door of the barn, he stopped cold.

For once, there was someone else there. Someone with strong shoulders that are hunched down, his small fingers going to work on a cow that was asleep on her feet. Occasionally he reached up, pet the cow’s side, fixed his own hair, and then went back to his task.

“Um,” Alex managed, and the other boy looked up, his fringe shifting as he did. 

His eyes flashed in the light of the barn, and Alex inhaled sharply.

“Oh,” he said, “Hi, Louis. Good morning.”

“Hello,” Louis offered, “I’m sorry. Your dad told me to stop by the morning.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis shrugged, “He said maybe you needed some help.”

Alex probably should have felt wounded by the fact that he could no longer handle it on his own. He was thirteen years old. He was old enough to pull his weight.

And yet somehow, he didn’t really mind. Because it was spring, and nothing bad happened in spring, so this had to be something good. And he liked Louis, and they could work done in half the time with four hands instead of two.

So he fetched the spare stool from the corner of the barn, and went to unlock the stall door of another cow so he could start is own work.

Louis didn’t seem that up for talking, but that was alright. They each just went about their work, milking, pouring the milk into the containers at the back of the barn, tucking the cows back into their stalls, everything quiet.

It was their first morning.

*******

Alex had known Louis nearly his whole life. Alex’s family’s dairy farm neighbored the Tomlinson’s fruit farm, the went to the same church every Sunday, their fathers sold their goods at the same markets. There were plenty of young boys around the strip of farms that were spread over the nearly empty English countryside, and Alex had gone to school and played with nearly all of them growing up. But none of them had ever come to work on his farm. Farm work was usually kept in the family. But after that first morning Louis had come over, it was clear that he was going to welcome on the farm until future notice, and Alex was welcome to go over the Tomlinsons’ home and work in their fields and orchard. It made sense, neighbors with young sons that were slowly becoming old enough to do more work. They didn’t have be paid in anything more than verbal thanks and maybe some gifts of apples or cheese.

So nearly every morning now, Alex woke up and went out to the barn and was either greeted with Louis already there, or he only had to wait a few minutes before Louis showed up with a wide smile and a soft greeting.

Louis wasn’t really fond of mornings, as Alex soon found out by how often he seemed ready to fall asleep on his feet. But he, like anyone else who had spent their entire upbringing on a farm, had learned how to get through mornings. By the time they were finished and went inside for breakfast, Louis was all smiles and a loud voice when he had a couple cups of tea and some hot eggs in him. And when Alex went over to the Tomlinson property in the afternoons, Louis was always wide awake and ready to get to work weeding the gardens or picking apples and berries and cutting up firewood.

Alex had never spent as much with Louis as he had with any other boy who was two years older than he was, but very quickly, Louis was becoming his best friend. They still had their lessons in different sections of the school they attended down the road, but during their free hour, Louis would come find Alex and pull him away from his younger friends so they could spend the hour together. He let Alex look at his school books, full of information Alex had a full two years to learn, and he handed Alex peaches and blackberries from his lunch bag.

“Wait,” Louis said, and would touch each peach before giving it to Alex, “This one is the best, so you can have it.”

“How can you tell it’s the best?” Alex would ask with narrowed eyes, and then resisted moaning around how delicious the peach he was now eating was.

“I can just tell,” Louis smiled, and then forward, “Sometimes I can just tell that things are good, or that things are going to happen.”

“No, you can’t,” Alex would protest, even when his voice shook a bit with uncertainty. He felt so young, so small around Louis, even though there was no real reason to feel that way.

“I can,” Louis insisted, and then would smile and lift his own peach to his own mouth.

Free school hours, morning chores, breakfasts and dinners at each other’s dining rooms. Split lunches and Louis telling Alex all the secrets he didn’t know yet.

Alex fell in love with Louis before he could realize what love was.

*******

“Jesus, Styles,” Louis’s laugh was loud and crisp ahead of him, “Get those long legs of yours to work!”

Alex tried to run forward, his feet stumbling on the steep hillside as did so. He lifted his head and looked ahead of him, to where Louis was running, carrying a wooden bucket in one hand. It knocked on his legs every now and then, but it didn’t slow his pace. Even when he turned around and started jogging up the hill backwards so he could watch Alex behind him, he didn’t slow.

It was early autumn, the sun still hot and bright, and school didn’t for another week. It was a perfect day to chase after his best friend as they went up the hill to the Tomlinson’s orchard to pick apples. They were finally ripe, the fruit almost ready to fall off the branches.

It was Louis’s job to pick the first apple on the farm. He was always able to find the best apple of the season, the one with the crispest flesh and the sweetest flavor. Just by feeling it, just by looking at it.

Alex had never gotten to see him pick the best apple before. But he got to go now.

Louis got to the top of the hill first, and just stood and watched, hands on his hips as Alex struggled up the last part of the hill. When he finally stopped, he doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees as he panted. Louis laughed, and reached out to pat him on the shoulder. It only made Alex lift his head and give him a look, and that only made Louis laugh more.

Despite himself, it made Alex smile.

Louis was seventeen now, and he always seemed two steps ahead of Alex. Louis was nearly done with school, and it fascinated Alex, the fact that this boy now knew just about all that anyone in this town knew. So few people went to uni, Louis was going to have all the knowledge in the world for a little while longer.

Alex was taller than him, though, and it was uncomfortable, knowing he had to tilt his head down to look at Louis a bit. He didn’t feel older, or stronger, or better. Louis was small, and probably not getting any bigger, but he had strong arms, shoulders, and legs; the muscles curving through the thin fabric of his shirt and trousers when he picked up buckets of fruit or came to help move the wheat and oats in the Styles barn. His hands were short and stubby and could easily grip and carry things, the tips and palms covered in calluses and blisters. But his face was so fine, even when he was squinting and suntanned and burnt, his lips thin and pink, his eyes big and bright and finely colored. There wasn’t anything Alex could compare them. The sky in the middle of summer came closest, and yet it didn’t seem right. It was supposed to be a color that belonged only to Louis.

Alex almost couldn’t stand to be next to him sometimes, with his strong limbs and flat belly and pretty face. Alex was only a few inches taller than him, but his body didn’t seem to fit together. His legs felt too long and out of touch with his feet and the rest of his body as he walked or ran, his arms felt the same. He had lifted and carried things for years, and his arms had some muscle now, and in his shoulders and chest, but it felt futile and undeveloped. His belly still swelled outward with baby fat, his face was too round, his hair wouldn’t stay flat.

Maybe it wasn’t right to keep dwelling on whether or not Louis would like the way he looked in the midst of all of that, but still, it was something he dwelled on more than a few times a day.

“Come on,” Louis said, “If we wait any longer, too many good ones are going to fall and then they’ll be lost.”

Alex nodded and then straightened, up following after Louis.

He had been in this orchard so many times. It was warm, the sun gleaming, but it was just promising to get cold soon. It was the kind of weather he loved, and Louis was strolling right in front of him, surrounded by the colors of blue sky and bright red and green, and he was happy. He was deliriously happy.

The tree right ahead of them was filled with fat, gleaming red and pink fruit, but Louis just looked at it and shook his head.

“Not this one.”

“You didn’t even feel them.”

“It’s not that one, Alex. Just wait,” Louis sighed, but still glanced behind him with a soft smile. He continued on, and stopped at another tree, this one filled with green and yellow apples. He reached towards a few of them, just holding his hand over the skin before pulling away and shaking his head again.

“How do you know which one is the best?” Alex asked, but Louis just shook his head.

“I can just tell,” he said softly, “Just a little longer.”

He wandered around, reaching out a hand, just holding it up to the fruit and the branches, and then he slowly brought his hand back. He wove through so many trees, and Alex trailed after him the whole time, following the movement of his hands, the slope of his back.

Then, Louis stopped, and turned towards one tree. He reached out both hands, his fingers curled, like the priest did on Sunday mornings when he was blessing the congregation. And then he reached out and grabbed onto one apple, holding it carefully, and then pulled until there was a hollow snap of stem leaving branch. Then Louis stepped back and walked towards Alex again.

“Here,” Louis smiled, holding out his hands. Alex blinked at him, and he looked down at the apple that was cradled in Louis’s hands, brilliant red with speckles of pink and green, the leaf attached to it long and shiny.

 “I want you to have it,” he said.

Alex blinked at him, not understanding, and shook his head.

“But – “ he started, “You always eat it. You found it.”

“Not this year,” Louis shrugged, “I want you to have the first bite this year.”

He held it out further, until the apple was nearly pressed to Alex’s chest anyways.

“Okay?” he murmured.

Alex just stared at him, and then looked to the apple again.

“Alex, please,” Louis murmured, “Take it.”

It was enough for him to break and reach out, grabbing hold of the fruit. It was slippery and firm under his touch, and the whole time he tried to hold it steady as Louis looked at him, his eyes wide and gleaming. Alex just looked at him, and then raised the apple to his mouth and bit in.

The apple was deliriously sweet, ripe and fresh and it was everything he could ever have hoped for in a piece of fruit, but he couldn’t even close his eyes and try to savor it because it was too busy staring at Louis, and how closely he was watching him.

“So?” Louis asked, and Alex forced himself to chew the fruit in his mouth, swallow it down. His mouth was filled with juice but his throat felt dry watching the boy in front of him.

“It’s…” he murmured, “It’s perfect.”

Louis lifted his brows, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s…” Alex shook his head, “It’s everything I think I could want.”

Louis blinked at him, tilting his head, and then came a little closer, closing a hand over the fruit.

“Can I have a taste?” Louis asked softly, and Alex blinked at him.

“I – “ he managed, and started to lift up the fruit to offer it to the other boy, but Louis pressed his hand back down.

“No, love,” he said.

Alex froze, his shoulders locking. The word sounded so lovely on Louis’s tongue. He had heard it before, he always had, when Louis was speaking to his sisters or girls at school or the woman at the corner store.

He had never called Alex that, and when he said it, it was so soft, like it could get carried away in the late summer wind.

Alex blinked again, and he looked into Louis’s eyes, seeing they had gone wide, almost worried. His grip tightened on the fruit, but his eyes stayed on Alex’s face.

And then, slowly, they trailed down to his lips.

Alex’s breath caught in his throat, and he felt like that air would never escape, and that he would be perfectly fine laying down to rest in this orchard on this beautiful day with this boy.

“I don’t – “ Louis said, “I don’t want to taste it that way.”

He stared at Alex’s eyes now, and his pupils were wide and his fingers were shaking over top of Alex’s hands.

Alex resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, to make sure they were alone, that they were safe. He tapped down the need to remember Sunday mornings and an old church and passing a Bible that was falling to pieces between his parents, hearing what was right, and more importantly, what was wrong.

He needed to, and yet he couldn’t find the urge to care.

“Okay,” Alex heard himself say, “That’s okay.”

“Yeah?” Louis breathed out.

Alex just nodded, his body out of breath.

And then Louis was leaning forward, and he was kissing him.

His mouth was chapped and careful, and seemed clumsy of Alex’s own mouth. But it was enough to make him close his eyes, and leaned forward into it. Louis’s grip tightened on Alex’s own hands, the sticky apple juice running between their fingers as Alex kept tight on the fruit. Louis’s tongue pushed at the seam of his lips, and Alex allowed his mouth to open, to let Louis touch and explore.

He had lost track of the seconds they had stood there, doing this, and too soon, Louis was pulling away. His mouth looked chapped and sticky, and his eyes were still wide, his breath ragged as he exhaled.

Alex just stared at him, his mouth tingling slightly. Then he nodded, and ducked his head forward.

“How – “ he started, “How did it taste?”

Louis laughed weakly, and shook his head, making the hair get into his eyes.

“That’s the best thing I’ve ever picked.” 

*******

Louis turned 18 on a cold Christmas Eve.

Winter was always a strange time for the Tomlinsons, because their source of income was frozen until spring. They made money off the fall surplus and the evergreens they grew and sold as Christmas trees and then, kindling. But it still made for a meager Christmas and for Louis, a meager birthday.

Most of the families from the closest neighboring farms were invited to the family’s annual Christmas Eve party after mass, but most people just stopped in to give Louis gifts – usually hand-knitted blankets or jumpers or jars of canned goods wrapped up in colorful twine and ribbon. When it had gotten to nearly midnight, it was just the Styles left, and that was only because Alex refused to leave. Louis’s sisters were upstairs, already asleep, and their parents were nursing cold coffee and making small talk in the living room as they waited for their sons to finally separate.

It had only been maybe five months since Louis had kissed Alex in the orchard, with their mouths tasting like the sweetest apple of the season. Since then, every time they had been together there had been a kiss, ones pressed to Alex’s cheeks when Louis came into the barn in the morning and tentative pecks of Louis’s temples when they were alone in the berry fields or up in the orchards. Alex wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly, other than that they both smiled at each other and laughed whenever there were kisses, and, well, he was kissing Louis. He couldn’t bring himself to ask more questions, especially not the ones he really didn’t want proper answers to. Like how boys weren’t supposed to press their laughter-filled mouths to other boy’s lips. And what would happen if one of their mothers, or worse, their fathers, needed something in the barn or the field and walked in on them.

Alex didn’t want answers. He wanted more time with Louis. So on Louis’s birthday, he took it.

They were supposed to say inside and sit by the fire to stay warm, but Louis still opened the back door and let them slip out once they had put their coats and boots back on. It was snowing, the white of it catching in the dark light cast outside by the house lights. Louis had forgotten his gloves, and Alex reached over and grabbed his hand, encasing it in his hand-knit mitten. He leaned over and kissed Louis on the cheek, and it made the other boy smile, so it did it again.

“I got you a present,” Alex said, and Louis turned to him, still smiling.

“Of course you did, darling,” he said. It made Alex’s chest feel tight, for Louis to smile at him and call him that.

Alex dug into his coat pocket and held it out, a little mound wrapped in newspaper.

“Careful,” he said, “It – it might break.”

“Okay,” Louis nodded as he took it. He cradled it carefully in one hand as he tugged at the tape and string with the other, trying to get it apart.

Eventually, the paper came apart, and Louis let the newspaper fall to the snow-dusted stoop as he just gazed at the thing in his hand.

It was a clay apple, very misshapen and not perfectly painted. Alex had spent a full week helping his teacher clean up the classroom just so he could get permission to get into the art supplies cabinet and sculpt the thing.

He already knew his parents had a present for Louis. They gave him a box of ice cream that was frozen into a brick after so long in the ice. They got it for him every year. But he wanted something from him.

“Do – is it okay?” Alex worked up the nerve to ask, and Louis only settled the apple down on the stoop and then surged forward and wrapped his arms around Alex’s shoulders.

“Yes,” he said, “Yes, darling, I love it.”

Alex’s entire face felt hot despite the chill outside, and his entire boy ignited when Louis gripped his face in both hands and kissed him firmly.

“And I love you,” he said once he pulled away.

It took Alex a moment for fully understand what Louis had just said. He just stared at the boy in front of him, with cold hands and snow catching in his eyelashes, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe what he had just said.

“Did you say you loved me?”

“Yes,” Louis said, “Isn’t that what people say, when they’re in love with each other?”

“I – I guess,” Alex said, “I just – I didn’t think you’d say it so soon.”

“So soon?” Louis asked, his eyebrows lifting.

“It’s been a few months,” Alex said, “Since, um, you kissed me.”

“And?” Louis said, “I know I love you, why should I wait to tell you that? I want to tell you now.”

A particularly fat snowflake landed on Alex’s eyelashes, obscuring his vision for a moment, and he just blinked it away, bringing Louis back into focus.

“Can I love you, too?”

Louis laughed, and grabbed onto Alex’s sleeves, pulling him closer, “I hope you do.”

So Alex laughed too, and they were just holding each other, laughing, until Alex bit his lip hard and sighed.

“Is – is this wrong? For me to love you?”

Louis’s smile faltered a bit, and when he exhaled, his breath was all frosty white.

“No,” he said, “Not when I’m sure I love you.”

They just looked at each, in the midst of a snow flurry, on Christmas Even that was rapidly approaching Christmas Day, and finally, Alex sighed, unleashing a fresh cloud of white.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay.”

He lifted his mitten-covered hand and pulled it along Louis’s cheek, and Louis just smiled at him.

“Can you come over tomorrow?” Louis asked, “After Christmas dinner?”

“Yes,” Alex said breathlessly, “I mean, I’ll ask Mum first. But. Probably. They like you.”

“I know they do, enough to give me more ice cream that takes a week to thaw,” Louis said.

There was the sound of footsteps in the house that made the wood creak so loudly they could hear it outside, and Alex knew that one of their fathers had come to tell him it was finally time for Alex to go home and for Louis to go to sleep.

But first, Louis picked up his gift, holding it tightly between his hands, and kissed Alex on the cheek, his cold-laced breath pressing closely to his ear afterwards.

“Merry Christmas, my darling.”

*******

Winter thawed slowly, and Alex spent it wrapping woolen blankets around the cows, shoving old shirts and rags into the gaps of the hen house, and going across the street to help Louis cut wood. The work made his hands break out in blisters despite his heavy gloves, but doing it every day was making his arms start to look stronger, and when it was over Louis would let him drink some tea out of his thermos and then they would kiss until their lips had feeling again.

Alex went into the market more with his father to sell a calf they didn’t plan on keeping in the new season, or to drop off milk and eggs at the local shops that always did business with them. Alex was allowed to look over the farm ledger and handle about two sentences of their business transactions. As the weather got warmer, his sixteenth birthday in June approached ever closer, and Louis started pinching his hips more and kissing cheek, by his ear.

“What do you want for your birthday?” he’d ask.

“Turning sixteen doesn’t mean anything,” Alex would answer, and Louis would just shrug and grin and kiss him again.

“It does, and I’ll figure something out.”

So on the morning of Alex’s birthday, he spent the whole day waiting for Louis to appear and offer him up a gift of some sort, with that wild, lovely smile of his to go with it. But then it was the evening, and Alex’s mum had made him a meager cake, and Louis still hadn’t shown up.

It wasn’t until the sky was getting dark and he was helping his mum put the dishes away that he heard a knock on the door. He heard his mum laugh lightly behind him as he nearly tripped over himself racing to the door, and he opened it up to finally, _finally_ reveal Louis, who was dressed in a bright blue shirt and looked like he was dipped in sunlight.

“Hi,” Alex said, his voice embarrassingly breathless.

“Hello,” Louis smiled, “I hope I didn’t interrupt dinner.”

“You know exactly when dinner is,” Alex scoffed, but still took a step back, into the house, so Louis could come in as well, “Did you bring my present?”

“Uh huh,” Louis smiled, “Can, um, can I give it to you upstairs? In your room?”

“Sure,” Alex said, “If my mum doesn’t need me to clean up anything else – “

“I don’t,” his mum called from the kitchen, “You boys go on upstairs.”

It was all it took for them to nearly race to the stairs, and then down the hallway and into Alex’s room. As soon as the door was closed, Louis was kissing him, and Alex laughed, letting Louis nearly devour his mouth with his own. When they finally pulled, Louis just held Alex’s face in his hands, grinning at him.

“Happy birthday,” he murmured, and Alex smiled at him in turn.

“I missed you today.”

“I’m here now, love.”

“Yes, I missed you the rest of the day, when you weren’t here.”

Louis just laughed, the noise all air.

“Needy, needy,” he teased, stroking the sides of Alex’s face.

Alex pulled back a bit, until Louis’s hands were resting on his chest, not his face.

“Where’s my present?” Alex asked, and this time, Louis laughed for real, the sound high and clear.

“I’m your present, darling,” Louis smiled, and Alex just looked at him in confusion.

“Well don’t look so disappointed,” Louis said, and Alex just shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just thought you were getting something ready.”

“I mean,” Louis shrugged, “I kind of am.”

Alex just stared at him again, and Louis nodded to the bed.

“Lay down?” he asked, and Alex nodded and went to go lay down on his bed. Louis came and joined him, tossing an arm around his midsection and gazing up at Alex from his position under his chin.

“Alex,” he said slowly, “I, um, I want to do something. For your gift.”

“Okay.”

“But if you don’t want it, you can tell me. This is a gift you can give away, or take another time.”

“Um…okay.”

Louis sighed, and then lifted himself up, so he was looking down at Alex.

“I kind of…” he breathed in deeply, “I’d like to make love to you.”

Alex just looked at him, blinking slowly up at Louis. His face was burning a little, and Louis looked a little scared, like he had just frightened Louis away.

And then Alex opened his mouth and softly asked, “How?”

Louis frowned at him.

“What do you mean, how?”

“I – “ Alex choked out, “I don’t know how that’s supposed to work with two blokes.”

Louis just stared at him, and Alex kept tripping over his words, trying to explain what he was thinking.

“I mean,” he said, “It’s not supposed to work, right?”

“Not supposed to work? Why not? Because of what it says in Genesis?” Louis scoffed, and then rubbed his hand over Alex’s midsection, “Hey, you’re bright red. It’s alright.”

Alex shook his head, and breathed in.

“I’m not scared of you,” he said, “It’s just…that’s supposed to mean a lot, isn’t it?”

“Guess so,” Louis smiled, “But I’m in love with you, so I think it’s something I’d like to do with you.”

“Even though we’re not married?” Alex asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be married?”

“And one of us is supposed to be a woman. We’ve broken one rule, let’s break another.”

“Um,” Alex said, “Okay.”

“Okay? Like, you want to do it?”

“Yes,” Alex nodded, “Yes, please.”

His face was burning now, but Louis just looked at him so carefully, so sweetly, and then gently lowered his mouth to Alex’s own.

“Okay,” he said, the word printed against Alex’s mouth as he kissed him, “Okay.”

Louis pulled back, and then went to climb off the bed, and Alex reached out to him.

“What are you doing? We can do it now.”

“I know, I want to, too,” Louis smiled, “But I need to go to your bath and get some Vaseline.”

“Vaseline?”

“Or paraffin,” Louis shrugged, “I, um, some of the lads from school…sometimes they talk about their girlfriends. And they say it makes things easier. I think that it’ll help even more with us.”

“Oh,” Alex managed, “Alright.”  

He watched Louis go, and then he returned just a few minutes later with a thick metal tub, which he set on the bed between them as they climbed back on.

“So,” he said, “Uh, who wants to be the girl?”

Alex laughed, he couldn’t help it. He was overwhelmed, and he barely knew what was happening, and Louis clearly didn’t, either.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just – I don’t know how to do this either.”

“I don’t either,” Louis said, “Hey, lovely, look at me.”

Alex laughed again and swallowed, and then gazed up at Louis and swallowed.

“You are the only person I’ve had eyes for since I was fifteen,” he said, “You know that?”

“I,” Alex said, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, “And I want to do this with you. And if you don’t like it, we can stop.”

“I want to,” Alex said, “I already told you I wanted to.”

“Alright,” Louis breathed out, “Alright, then we can figure this out.”

Alex blinked up at him again, and exhaled slowly.

“I think,” he said, “I think I want to be the girl.”

Louis lifted his brows.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” Alex said, “Yes, I’m sure.”

His cheeks and his chest felt burning hot at the idea of Louis inside his body, on top of him, kissing him. Taking care of him. Making him happy.

“Okay,” Louis nodded, “Okay.”

He reached up to Alex’s shirt, pulling at one of the top buttons.

“I’m going to take your clothes off,” he murmured, “And then I’m going to touch you, and kiss you, and then I’m going to make love to you. Alright?”

“Yes,” Alex whispered, “Yes, please.”

Louis nodded, and smiled as he undid Alex’s buttons, rubbing over his front when half of them were undone. Alex’s entire body felt like it was burning.

“So pretty,” Louis murmured, “My pretty boy.”

Alex squirmed a little and exhaled, his eyes burning a little.

“Be careful,” he whispered, “When you do it, be careful.”

Louis just looked up at him and smiled softly, lifting a thumb and rubbing over Alex’s cheek.

“I promise, darling,” he said, “I promise, I’ll be careful with you.”

He kissed Alex’s once more, and he breathed in deeply, his chest moving up and down quickly as he tried to breath in deeply and exhale over again. He felt Louis’s hands on his belt, and then Louis lifted up and kissed the side of his mouth.

“I love you,” he said firmly, “Alex, I love you. It’s okay.”

Alex nodded, and he kept breathing, and he felt Louis kissing his hips, and then he closed his eyes, letting Louis’s hands move over him, taking off his trousers, opening his legs, finding the Vaseline.

“I love you,” Louis kept saying, “I love you so much. Are you okay? Breathe. Baby, breathe.”

Alex closed and opened his eyes in time with his breaths, getting glimpses of Louis over him, kissing him, petting his sides.

When it was over, Louis pulled Alex’s blanket over both of them, and tucked himself under Alex’s chin and kissed his shoulder, tossing an arm around his middle. Alex fought to keep his eyes open, to stay awake, but Louis just kept kissing his shoulder and petting his belly, telling him to sleep.

Eventually, Alex did.

He was stupidly, desperately in love.

********

Louis was finished with school even though Alex still had to get through a few more years.

“It’s not fair,” he’d sigh every morning before he left, when Louis was helping him pour the milk into the troughs, “No one likes me there.”

“They like you just fine, darling,” Louis would smile, “Just be yourself.”

Alex still didn’t try to make friends. He ate his sandwiches on the steps he had Louis had once sat on, looking out to the courtyard and counting the minutes he could go. He told Louis had his day when he got home for a little while, and then decided the details didn’t matter when they were all the same. They were the same for a month, and then six, and then a year and another.

The day Alex finished school was sunny, and Louis met him outside with a basket of strawberries and a wide smile.

“It’s summer,” he said as he reached for Alex’s hand. He had a glint in his eyes that told Alex that they weren’t kissing now, but they would be soon, “Let’s go.”

Alex took his hand, which was sticky with strawberry juice, and followed him to their bikes.

********

 “I have an idea,” Louis said when he had shown up on the front stoop on the morning of Alex’s eighteenth birthday.

Of course Alex had come running the second his mum had said that Louis was as at the door for him, and when he came outside, he saw Louis had brought his bicycle, and had already gone to the trouble of unlatching Alex’s bike from nearby and rolling it to rest against the front porch.

“What’s your idea?” Alex asked, “Are you still not allowed to drive your dad’s truck?”

“I’m going to drive that thing when he starts pushing up daises,” Louis sighed, and then kicked the side of Alex’s bike, “And we’re going to the library.”

“The library,” Alex sighed.

“Yes, the library,” Louis said, “It’s Saturday, I know for a fact you have no chores after noon on Saturday. Now come on.”

Alex rolled his eyes and took a step back into the house.

“Unlike you,” he said, “I can drive. Let me get the keys.”

“Aren’t you fancy,” Louis rolled his eyes, but still smiled, “Okay. I’ll wait.”

*******

“Why are we at the library?” Alex asked once they were there. The library was a decently far drive, but so were plenty of ice cream parlors, or decent parks. They could have gone anywhere, but Louis had selected the library, a place Alex didn’t imagine he’d be hanging out in much longer after he had finished school.

“Well, you’re eighteen now,” Louis said, “So you can finally see something I found. You just need to get the librarian to stamp your card that lets you into the adult section.”

“The adult section,” Alex repeated, “Why would I go there?”

“Alex. Go get your card signed,” Louis said firmly, and Alex just rolled his eyes and got his wallet out from his trouser pocket. He tried to ignore how smug Louis looked, that he still listened to him so closely after all this time.

He went to the desk and got his creased, dirty card stamped with a red ink star that allowed him to go anywhere in the tiny, cramped building. As soon as he had wandered back with his new card, Louis just nodded his head towards the back of the building, and Alex, as always, followed him.

They skated past dozens of tall columns of books, the shelves overwhelming in some places and barren in others. There were mostly older patrons sitting around with thick books or newspapers, sleeping by the few windows the place had. There were no school kids doing their homework at the long tables, not with summer fresh and thick in the air.

Finally, Louis made it towards the back, near a section that was clearly roped off and marked with an old sign that read “Adults Only, ask for librarian assistance.”

“We’re not asking anybody for help,” Louis said before Alex could say anything. He lifted himself onto his tiptoes, his fingers pressed against the shelves as he scanned the books. And then he grabbed one book in particular, tucked it against his chest, and grabbed Alex’s hand to pull him into a corner.

“Louis,” he laughed, “What the hell are we doing?”

Louis turned to him with a grin, his fingers drumming on top of the thick black book that didn’t even have a title or an author printed on the front or the spine.

“So, um,” he said, “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes, keep your voice down.”

“My voice is fucking down, we’re in a library,” Louis said, “Anyways, I’ve just been thinking that maybe, we could try some new things together.”

“New things?”

“Yes.”

“Like – “ Alex frowned, “Do you want to go to different places? Like on dates? Because I could take you on one. It couldn’t be obvious, but – “

“No, you knob,” Louis snorted, and then leaned in, pressing his mouth to Alex’s ear, “I meant sex. New sex things.”

“Oh,” Alex said, “Oh. Um.”

“I love you,” Louis repeated again, his words nearly tripping over each other, “But like…maybe we can do something different, you know? Something besides one of us just lying on our backs.”

“Is there another way to do it?” Alex asked, and Louis grinned again and then cracked open the book on his lap.

Alex glanced down and then gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth.

“Louis,” he hissed once he’d pulled his hand away, “Put that away.”

“What, it was in a library, we’re allowed to have it,” Louis laughed, “Anyways, I found this thing a year ago. But I wanted to show it to you first before we did anything, and you couldn’t be back here until he turned eighteen. And I couldn’t check it because I can’t very well have this on my check out log, can I?”

“I – “ Alex stuttered, “People are having sex in that book.”

“Yes,” Louis said, “Technically, it’s a guide to pregnancy and childbirth. But it starts with conception.”

“Jesus,” Alex hissed, and Louis laughed and pet his cheek.

“It’s okay, love,” he said, “I just thought we could look at some of the pictures, think of the things we might like, and then we can try them when we go home.”

Alex swallowed. His face was bright red and he felt tears in his eyes, which was fucking embarrassing because he was a man now, and he was in love with the boy sitting next to him, and he shouldn’t be shy about it.

He liked the way they made love, quietly and in the dark and with one of them pressed on their back while the other hovered over them, thrusting swallowing and whispering soft, sweet things. Sometimes, they got quick hand jobs in the fields, orchard or the barn, or they got their mouths on each other. He loved all of it, because it was with Louis, and he kind of thought everything with Louis was guaranteed to be good.

But…now that Louis had brought up the idea of there being more things to do, he was curious. He honestly didn’t know there was another way to do things.

“Okay,” he sighed, “Let me see.”

Louis grinned once more and then cracked open the book again, shoving it towards Alex. He inhaled deeply, trying to get past the fact that there were drawings of people having sex in a book in the same library he had gone to revise in his whole life. He scanned the pages, frowning at some pictures as Louis slowly flipped through the pages. He stopped eventually, pointing to one picture of a woman on her hands and knees, a man thrusting in from behind her.

“Not that one,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, why not?” Louis asked, his voice genuinely curious.

“It reminds me of a steer mounting a cow,” Alex said, and Louis groaned.

“Christ,” he huffed, “Alright, alright, fair enough.”

He went through a couple more pages, and then he pointed to one of a woman leaning her hands against a wall as her male partner once more thrusted in from behind.

“What about this? Is that better?”

“I – maybe.”

“Okay. We’ll set it to the side,” Louis said, and kept on flipping pages. Alex only stopped him a few seconds later, smoothly down the pages and pointing to one set of pictures.

“Um,” he said, “Let me look at this.”

So Louis let him look at two illustrations, both of a man lying on his back while the woman sat on his member, in one picture sitting facing him and in the other facing the other direction. He just stared, and then lifted his eyes to Louis, who was watching him carefully. He tried to keep the color out of his face, despite the fact he was picturing himself bouncing on Louis’s cock while the other man gazed up at him, or Louis sitting on his own prick, his cheeks flushing as he worked himself on Alex.

“Um,” he said, “This one, I like this one.”

“Okay,” Louis nodded, “You want to look at more?”

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, “Yeah, I do.”

So they kept looking through the book, gazing at different positions. Legs being thrown over a woman’s head, lying in opposite directions so they could touch each other’s genitals with their hands and mouths, fucking on beds or on the floor or against walls, from behind or from face to face. Alex pointed to ones he liked best, and shook his head at the ones he didn’t. But he kept drifting back to that one picture of him sitting on Louis’s cock, or vice versa, and eventually, he reached over to Louis and closed his hand over Louis’s own, pushing until Louis was closing the book.

“That’s enough,” he said softly, “I think I’m alright.”

“Okay,” Louis nodded, “You remember everything you wanted to try?”

“I – yes,” Alex said, “Can we go home now?”

“Oh, yeah?” Louis lifted his brows, “What do you want to do?”

Alex punched him weakly in the arm.

“My mum’s home, you punk. And I bet yours is, too,” he huffed, “But, tonight, maybe? Once everyone settles down. I’ll make up an excuse for you to stay over. Or I can come to yours.”

“Yeah,” Louis nodded, a smirk still on his lips, “I’d like that.”

“Wipe that look off your face,” Alex huffed, and that only made Louis grin more.

“What look?” he asked.

“You’re awful.” Alex said, “C’mere.”

He kissed Louis in the darkened stacks of the library, with his fingers gripped tightly into Louis’s shirt as he tugged him closer. Louis’s lips were chapped from the heat, and he could taste sweat on his lip, and he sighed as he deepened the kiss and kept pulling on him, until Louis was nearly on top of him, giggling and kissing him deeply between gasps of laughter.

Alex only pushed Louis off of him when he heard the dull footsteps of an encroaching librarian, and they sprinted to the back door of the library to escape, still laughing, the sex book abandoned and open on the floor behind them.

********

When they got back to Alex’s home and up to his room, Alex pushed Louis against the door and kissed him as soon as he was inside. They always kissed in this room, but over the last few years, they had a system. A kiss after a few moments in the room meant they just wanted to be together. A kiss the second the lock clicked meant they were going to have sex.

“Eager,” Louis laughed against Alex’s mouth, but still lifted his hands up, tangling them in Alex’s curls.

Alex kept kissing him until Louis put a hand on his chest, gently pushing him away.

“You wanna do some stuff from that book?” Louis asked, and Alex nodded, making him laugh. He laughed even harder when Alex started to fiddle with his buttons.

“You know,” Alex said as he pulled away the fabric of Louis’s shirt, showing his chest and his belly, “One of these years you’re going to have to give me a birthday present that isn’t sex.”

“Oh?” Louis hummed as Alex knelt down and kissed his hip, “You seem to like them.”

“I get you real presents on your birthday,” Alex huffed, “It’s not fair.”

“You can’t fuck me for my birthday, I was nearly born on Christmas, and we already have too many sins between us.”

Alex huffed and kissed Louis’s hip once more as he reached up for his trousers.

“If I went to all that trouble to show you that book and you’re just going to suck my cock, you’ve got another thing coming,” Louis said, and Alex huffed weakly as he unbuckled Louis’s belt.

“I have an idea,” he said, and he glanced up to see Louis grinning down at him.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, “Like what?”

Alex breathed, and then ran his hands up Louis’s sides as he stood back up, until his hands were on Louis’s chest and he was looking down at him.

“That one picture,” he said, “Of the woman kind of…sitting on the man?”

“Mm,” Louis hummed, “I remember you liked that one.”

“I want to do that to you,” he said, “I mean…”

“You want me to be the one sitting?” Louis asked, and Alex just sighed and nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “Yes, that’s what I want.”

Louis smiled at him, and nodded.

“Alright,” he said, “It’s your birthday, love, whatever you’d like.”

Louis held onto Alex’s hand, and then pulled him over to the bed, laughing as he nearly pounced on the other boy and bracketed his thighs around him. Louis leaned down and fiddled with Alex’s buttons, pushing them away from his chest. Alex surged up after he was, peeling off his own shirt and then sliding off Louis’s unbuttoned shirt, kissing his shoulder. He took off Louis’s trousers, finishing what he had started earlier, along with his drawers, and Louis laughed and kicked until the fabric was off his body and he was bare. He was hard, his cock pink and bobbing against his hip, a stark contrast to the golden and white strips of his skin, marred by the summer sun. Alex surged up to kiss him, and Louis met him, and then Alex went to undo his own trousers as Louis reached over to his bedside and got Alex’s tin of Vaseline. He shoved it into Alex’s hands once Alex’s trousers off, and Alex screwed the slippery lid off and then dipped his fingers in, nodding forward to make Louis come forward. The other boy ducked his head into the curve of Alex’s shoulder, and Alex exhaled and then reached out, to Louis’s backside. His fingers slipped over the swell of Louis’s arse, until he found his entrance, and then he cautiously pressed his fingers to it, like he had done so many times before. Louis sighed shakily against his shoulder, and Alex just nodded and kept prodding, rubbing the Vaseline over Louis’s hole, pushing the tips of his fingers inside to loosen him up.

“Feels good,” Louis murmured, and Alex kissed his shoulder as he kept working his fingers, making Louis sigh more, his breath tickling Alex’s skin.

He kept plunging two fingertips in and out of Louis, trying to make sure he was ready, although he always seemed to whimper and cry out out of pain whenever Alex first went in. He did the same when Louis fucked him, and he never blamed him for it, but he always wanted to avoid hurting Louis as much as he could.

“M’alright,” Louis said, “Alex, baby, I’m alright.”

He pressed his hand to Alex’s wrist, pushing his fingers out of him. He lifted his head, looking down at Alex more directly

“You can fuck me now,” he said firmly, and Alex entire face felt like it was on fire.

“Okay,” he said, and then lifted his hips the same time Louis lifted his body. He held onto the base of his own prick, and then reached back, feeling for Louis’s slick hole. He looked up at Louis, and he saw the other boy was flush, and like he was holding his breath, his lips not moving, so Alex reached up and stroked his shoulder, up his neck. Louis’s eyes shifted to meet his, and then he exhaled, laughing.

“I’m fine,” he said, “Go ahead.”

Alex nodded and then pressed his cockhead to Louis’s entrance, waiting for a moment, and then he pushed his hips up, getting just the tip inside. Louis gasped weakly but then stayed still, nodding to himself, visibly forcing his muscles to relax.

Then, Louis sat down, onto the rest of Alex’s cock, and they both gasped weakly. Alex was suddenly surrounded by Louis’s hot, tight body, and he exhaled slowly, petting Louis’s sides. The other boy was shaking a bit, gasping at the feeling, and then he lifted his head, his eyes wide and blown, if not a little watery.

“I – “ he stuttered, “I like it.”

Alex just stared at him, frowning at bit.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Louis nodded, “It feels good.”

“It looks like it hurts.”

“You’re big.”

Alex gulped at his words, and then stroked down Louis’s thighs, which were strained with the effort of keeping him up.

“Can you move a little?”

“Um,” Louis gulped, and then lifted his body up, and then back down, and he hissed and cried out, leaning forward into Alex’s shaking arms. It felt really fucking good when Louis did that, but it looked like it hurt.

“I’m fine,” Louis said, “I’m just surprised, s’all.”

Alex kept cradling him, though, stroking the back of his head and then lifting his chin to kiss his forehead.

“I’m gonna try again,” Louis said, and then lifted his hips up and brought them down again. He sighed, but he sounded far less in pain now. He pulled himself out of Alex’s arms and instead sat back up properly, only leaning forward to brace himself against Alex’s chest. He moved again, lifting himself once more, and Alex’s eyes fluttered closed at the feeling of himself constantly moving inside Louis, while his favorite boy got flushed and sweaty above him, his lips parting to moan softly.

Louis’s blunt nails dug into Harry’s shoulders, and he kept pushing himself down, occasionally leaning down to steal a kiss, or he would lift himself back up to be properly sitting up when Louis bounced back down. Alex groaned and gripped hard onto Louis’s hips, anchoring himself to his boy as he bounced.

The sun was high and hot outside, and it was making his skin tight and sweaty, and the light scattered itself over Louis’s pink cheeks, his dark lashes, the golden tones of his hair. Alex reached desperately for his shoulder, pulling him back to kiss him once more. Louis gasped against his mouth as Alex’s cock once again moved around and prodded at him, but he still smiled when he moved away, his face red and slick.

“I love you,” Louis whispered weakly as he bounced. His chest was pink, his cock was red and leaking over his hip, “I’m so bloody in love with you.”

Alex couldn’t even bring him to move Louis down again, so he just grabbed for the other boy’s hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, then flattened his hand to kiss over his palm. He wanted all of Louis on his mouth, wanted to taste what the sun felt like on his skin.

Louis yelped weakly after a few more bounces, and Alex felt him crash down into his arms as he pushed against Alex’s cock a few more times and then cried out, his cock leaking all over their hips and bellies, and then his body stilled against Alex’s. He wanted to keep moving inside Louis until he came, too, but instead he slipped out of him and grabbed onto his length, giving it a couple strokes, slapping it against Louis’s slick hole as he did. It didn’t take long for his hips to buck up, bouncing Louis’s limp body with him, and then he was spilling over his hand and Louis’s bum, making the other boy groan weakly.

Alex dropped his hand from his cock and instead wiped it on the side of his quilt, and then lifted his hand and carefully pushed Louis’s fringe aside, looking into his dark, watery eyes.

“Hi,” he said, and Louis just smiled weakly.

“Hello.”

“Thank you for showing me that book.”

Louis snorted and kissed Alex’s chest.

“You’re welcome,” he said, “You should know I’m going to do the same thing to you one day, just wait.”

“Alright,” Alex laughed, petting down Louis’s back, “Alright.”

They stay still for a little while, too hot to get under Alex’s sheets, and then Alex swallowed, his throat dry and desperate for water.

“I love you, too,” he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t say that earlier, when you said it to me.”

Louis laughed weakly, the sound barely more than a puff of air that made his shoulders jump.

“It’s okay,” he said, “I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Louis said, “I know you love me, baby.”

Alex just looked at him, and Louis eventually just brought his mouth down to kiss Alex on the cheek, close to his mouth.

“Happy birthday,” he said, then kissed him again, his voice lilting a bit as he started to sing softly, “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow…”

He reached up, petting Alex’s wilted curls, and occasionally pressed kisses to Alex’s cheeks as he sang. Alex just closed his eyes, holding onto Louis’s bare waist, as his boy kissed and sang to him.

He was eighteen years old, the world was at his feet, and he still couldn’t imagine how things could be any better than this.

*******

He didn’t celebrate his birthday much after that.

His family tried to, but he was an adult now, and any money that could be spent on anything else wasn’t going to be spent on Alex’s birthday presents. It was okay, though, because Louis would come over, and they would get their work done, which made Alex’s parents happy, and then they would spend the rest of the day in Alex’s bed, which made _him_ happy.

They were over at each other’s homes more than not, and their families still said nothing. They could tend to each other’s chores more easily if they were in each other’s rooms in the morning to begin with. And this was a small scrap of countryside in the North, where the church and the post office and the ice cream shop were attractions of equal magnitude. Here, boys sleeping in each other’s rooms meant nothing, and always would mean nothing.

Alex kept getting taller, while Louis didn’t, but Louis started growing a beard, while Alex couldn’t.

“We each get something,” Louis would shrug when Alex ran his hands over the red hair on his lover’s face, his lip pouted out in envy, “I have to tilt my head up to look at you now, do you know how much I hate that?”

“You’ve always had to do that.”

“It’s worse now,” Louis would sigh, and then grab Alex’s chin and bring him into a kiss. That was every night. The only time it changed was once a year, on Alex’s birthday, when Louis would nearly tackle him to the bed and grin.

“Are we old now?” he would sigh as he leaned down to kiss him, and Alex, every year, shrugged.

“No,” he said, “I think to be old you have to see things change. And nothing’s changed. The cows are the same and the apples are the same and everything’s the same.”

Louis grinned, leaning down close to him.

“Am I the same?”

Alex would blink up at him, and run his hands over Louis’s face, constantly shifting between soft and sharp, shaved or bearded, his hair varying lengths. His eyes were the same, though, and his smile, and the way he looked at Alex.

“Yes and no.”

Louis would smiled, and then lean down to kiss him.

“Maybe one day,” he said, “Things will change for us.”

“I hope not too much.”

Every year was the same now. This one was no different when Alex woke and went out to the barn. He got Marcie got of her stall, their newest cow who had just gotten pregnant. He kissed her nose and rubbed her swollen side, and then got a bucket out, then sat down to milk her.

“Hey.”

Alex lifted his head, not expecting the voice this time. He knew that today was a day off for Louis most days, simply because both of their families knew that on Alex’s birthday, nothing got done. So Louis would sleep in, and he would see Alex in the middle of the afternoon, not the morning. And yet when he turned his head, he saw Louis leaning against the door, grinning at him.

“Oh,” Alex said, throwing the towel over his shoulder, “Hey.”

He picked up the now-full bucket, grunting a bit as he took it over to the holder, “How long you been standing there?’

“A little while,” Louis admitted, “Admiring things.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alex chuckled, “Like what.”

“Like how twenty-two looks pretty on you,” Louis smiled.

Alex snorted, but Louis just shook his head and came over.

“I’m serious,” he said. He looped his arms around Alex’s hips and kissed his shoulder, which made him freeze up, even after so long.

“Lou.”

“No one’s gonna see,” Louis groaned, “Your mum’s in the kitchen, and I know because I said hello to her on the way in. And she told me your dad’s in town. So who’s left to see us?”

“I just – “ Alex sighed, “I just want you to be careful.”

“Alright, darling,” Louis sighed, “Can I get a kiss, at least?”

Alex turned his face towards the ceiling and sighed, exhaling hard.

“Christ, you drive a hard bargain,” he said. He set the now-empty bucket down on the floor, then turned as much as Louis’s grip would allow before he ducked his lips down and brought his hands up, cradling Louis’s face. He felt Louis smiled as he pressed their lips together.

He pulled away too soon, and Louis sighed.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he said.

“You can come over tonight,” Alex said, “Mum’s making chicken. And potatoes, the ones you like. With cheese.”

“Mm,” Louis hummed, “Can I stay over?”

Alex shook his head, “And do what?”

“Read the Bible,” Louis said, tracing Alex’s said, “Out loud,” he ran his finger up his arm, “In your bed.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Alex sighed, and picked up a bucket, thrusting it into Louis’s hand, “If you’re going to be a menace, make yourself useful. Daisy should be waking up now, she’ll needed to be milked.”

“Daisy hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you, you just pull her too hard.”

“You’ve never said that about me when I do it to you.”

Alex groaned and grabbed Louis’s shoulders and pulled him close, kissing the crown of his head.

“Go work, you damn menace.”

*******

Normally, Alex relished any days off from chores. Of course, he normally just spent them doing different chores, since he went right over to the Tomlinsons’ farm and helped Louis with whatever he needed before he eventually ended up on his back, with Louis’s legs straddling his hips and Louis’s lips on his neck.

But today, he and Louis had gotten a day off at the same time, with direct orders of what to do for the day.

The thing was, Alex had listened to the radio on plenty of mornings while he was in the barn and looking for some entertainment that wasn’t Louis’s mouth. He knew that the situation with Britain and Germany and Italy wasn’t getting any better. He knew that countries that big with armies that big normally didn’t sort things out on their own. And that meant maybe a draft would come. No guarantee, but a chance. So they needed their information updated at the closest draft office.

They waited in line together, pressed hip to hip but no closer, to not draw attention. Then Alex went to his tests and Louis went to his. A nurse shone a light in Alex’s eyes, held up a card and asked him to find the green shape in the red dots. To read the smallest letters he could on a board across the room. His breathing was checked, so was his heart. No asthma, no back problems, no epilepsy or fainting spells. Intelligence was fine. Height was good, weight was excellent. He was given a friendly smile and a nod as the nurse scribbled in his file and then he was sent back to the lobby, where the nurse was waiting for him.

“How did yours go?” Alex asked as they went outside.

“Fine. The nurse told me I could lose some weight, but I think that’s my arse’s fault.”

“That’s rude,” Alex said, and, because they were in the shadows of the nearby alley, spared a kiss to Louis’s crown.

“It’s her job. If you wanted to really make a point, you’d buy me ice cream.”

“Okay,” Alex shrugged, and Louis just gave him a look.

“What?”

“I said, let’s get ice cream,” Alex said, “We have the day off, we’re in town, come on, let’s just do it. I have some money.”

“That you could spend on something other than me.”

“Come on, let me buy you something,” Alex huffed, “I think my dad sells to the shop up the street, maybe they’ll give me a little bit off.”

Louis just snorted and patted Alex’s arm before smiling.

“Okay,” he said, “Fine, you can buy me ice cream. But I want to go see a movie, and I’m buying tickets.”

“And popcorn?”

“Don’t get fucking greedy,” Louis snapped, and Alex just laughed and squeezed Louis’s hand, lightning fast.

“Let’s go have a day off.”

*******

When Alex stood to get out of bed the next morning, and he heard a noise of protest from behind him. A small hand reached out and curled tightly on his wrist, tugging on him and making him turn around. Louis had his eyes closed, but his face was scrunched up, unhappy. He rolled against the bed and groaned, then tugged on his wrist again.

“Stay,” he mumbled, and Alex laughed and lifted his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

“I have to go to the barn. Already took a day off.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“We still own cows on Sunday.”

“I want you to fuck me.”

“It’s Sunday, Louis, for Christ’s sake,” Alex laughed weakly and then leaned forward, smoothing Louis’s fringe away from his forehead so he could kiss him there. It made the other man’s nose twitch as he smiled, and his eyes opened a bit, brilliant blue peaking through dark lashes.

“Be quick,” he murmured, “I get cold without you, you’re a furnace.”

“Okay,” Alex said entirely too quickly, “I’ll be right back.”

Louis just smiled, and then tugged on Alex’s hand again, making him roll his eyes weakly before he leaned down to Louis again.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” Louis said, and Alex was just about to open his mouth to groan, when Louis spoke again, “I’m just really happy.”

Alex smoothed his hand over Louis’s forehead, ruffling his fringe.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” Louis agreed with a nod, “I’m so fucking happy.”

“Good,” Alex said, and then leaned down and kissed Louis once more, “Stay happy while I go do the chores.”

“Fuck you,” Louis groaned weakly, swatting at the air before tucking his hand under Alex’s pillow, “Hurry, I’m hard.”

“Lord,” Alex huffed, and then kissed Louis’s forehead just before he stood, “Lord, Lord, Lord, do you test me.”

Louis just smiled, and then turned off, lost in Alex’s blankets. Alex just shook his head and went to get his boots so he could go outside, something he would much rather avoid.

He thought of Louis saying that he was happy as he fetched the milk bucket from the inside of the barn a few minutes later, and it made him smile as he unlocked the first stall.

He loved that boy so much.

He wanted to make him happy forever.

*******

But happiness wasn’t built for forever. It was barely built for a moment.

Especially when Louis’s father died on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of August.

Alex didn’t get to hear the whole story from him, because Louis had to stay with his mother and his sisters for days after it happened. He heard it from his own father. Mr. Tomlinson had been in the strawberry patch, and then the entire right side of his body had gone limp, and he had fallen over, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Something had happened in his brain. Something had snapped.

He was buried three days later. It was sunny on the day of the funeral, which felt wrong. Then again, all of Alex’s memories of Alex were seeped in sunlight. Maybe it made sense for this to fit in there, too.

Louis was wearing his father’s suit, which sort of made Alex want to scream. When he was asked to speak, his voice was steady even as his hands shook so bad that the dirt clutched between them was falling through the crevices of his fingers. Alex wanted so badly to reach out, to smooth his fingers down and hold him steady. Maybe he could offer one gruff pat on the shoulder. After all, wasn’t the only time men could show some love for the other was when someone had died? Didn’t that break down just about every other rule?

Some of the guests pitched in some words, the circle was filled with half the town and yet was small enough for everyone to have an optimal turn.

When it circled around to Alex, he considered shaking his head, feigning that he didn’t have the words yet. He had the words, was the thing. He just couldn’t say any of them.

“Mr. Tomlinson was a good man,” he started. It was safe and it grated his tongue, but it was true, “I – I started working for him almost ten years ago. He taught me how to work hard as much as my own father did.”

He forced himself to flick his wrist, throw his dirt in, step back so it was over. Everything he couldn’t say itched at his throat.

_He raised the best man I’ve ever known._

The priest finished his readings when the last handful was tossed in. And then the mourners started to break apart, like black flies leaving a piece of fruit after it was picked clean. But Alex stayed put, and his mother only patted his shoulder and then left, leaving him and Louis alone.

Louis lifted his head, his voice quiet.

“Well, at least I get the truck now.”

Alex couldn’t find the energy to laugh, and Louis couldn’t either. So he spoke again.

“Come over tonight.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” Louis shook his head, “Just be with me, please.”

Alex just nodded, and Louis turned away.

“Go be with your family,” Louis said, “Please.”

But you’re my family, too, he thought desperately, You’re the family I want.

But he wasn’t going to fight Louis. Not today of all days. So he patted his shoulder, once, too firmly, and then turned and went back to his parents. He would go before it got dark. He would try to find a good excuse.

*******

That night, in Louis’s bed, Louis wept against his chest, and Alex kept a steady hand on his back, stroking between his shoulder blades.

“I’m in love with you,” Alex said, “You’re the love of my life.”

Louis choked out another sob and covered his face.

“That’s a horrible time to tell me that.”

“I’ve told you that before.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m not mad at you,” Louis lifted his head, “You’ll help me, right? You and your dad…you can come by, maybe? Help me while I figure things out?”

“Yes,” Alex said immediately, “Jesus, yes, of course.”

“I don’t know how the ledger works exactly. He was teaching me parts of it, but…” he trailed off, and Alex kissed his forehead.

“Of course,” he said, “Dad can do that stuff in his sleep. He’ll probably be glad for an excuse to teach me, too.”

“Okay,” Louis nodded, “Okay.”

*******

Alex didn’t sleep. Apparently, neither did Louis.

“You heard about Germany today on the radio?” Louis asked. Alex stirred and looked up at him, frowning.

“Sure.”

“Well, it’s getting worse,” Louis said, “And now Italy’s going to get involved. I hear Chamberlain’s already on the phone with France.”

There was long stretch of silence, and Alex looked up at him again.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it feels like a war.”

“Sure. They’ve been talking about that. That’s why we filed our forms, in case a draft’s coming.”

“No, Alex, not a it-could-happen-war. A big fucking war. Bigger than the ones our fathers fought.”

“You don’t know that. They could work it out.”

Louis made a frustrated noise, shaking his head.

“When has that ever happened?” he said, “I swear, I can feel it. Is that crazy? I can feel it coming the same way I can tell when it’s going to be a good season, or what apples are going to grow best. I can feel it coming.”

Alex just stared at him. He tried to ignore the sick roll in his belly, but he couldn’t. Louis knew things. He didn’t know exactly what went around in his head, but he knew things. It used to scare Alex, but now, he was used to it, the same way he was used to everything about Louis. He was used to when Louis told him to give a cow a certain time because she was in a bad mood, to pick off a certain tree because its fruit would fall and rot if they didn’t clean it up now. How easily he would ask about Alex’s mood. How his hands found the right places instantly while Alex’s fumbled.

Louis knew things. And Alex didn’t have the strength to believe he could maybe be wrong this time.

“You should sleep.”

“That’s a nice way of telling me to be quiet,” Louis snorted, and then turned to face Alex, “You know, they’ll throw out my draft papers now that the farm will be in my name. They don’t send farmers to war.”

“Well. Lucky you.”

“Your papers will still be there.”

Alex sighed and grabbed hold of Louis’s quilt and pulled it up over his shoulder, smoothing it down.

“Go to sleep, my love,” he murmured, and then pressed a kiss to Louis’s lips, lax and tired of arguing.

“Why do bad things keep happening,” Louis said.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, “But maybe God, if he’s up there, and not angry at us for all we’ve done together, he’ll see we’ve had enough bad things and he won’t send a war.”

Louis didn’t answer. So Alex kissed his face until he was sure he was asleep, and not just pretending.

*******

Alex hated when Louis was right about something he really, really wanted him to be wrong about.

Like the year Alex tried to say he could pick a better apple than Louis, and he picked one with worms and Louis laughed at him until they were both crying for very different reasons. Or when Alex said that the chickens on the farm trusted him enough not to peck him, even when he picked one up upside, which resulted in several beak-sized gashes in his arms.

Or when he predicted a war, and just a few weeks later, a war was declared. And a month after that, a letter Alex did not want to read arrived in the mail for him. 

Alex’s mother was crying when she handed it to him, and his father was nowhere to be found, probably off in the barn trying not to be upset at the fact he fought in the trenches partially for the hope his son one day wouldn’t have to do the same thing, and yet here they were.

Alex read the letter over and over again, and then lifted his head and stared at his weeping mother, gave her a crushing hug, and ran out the door.

Louis. He would get to Louis.

He drove quickly over the neighboring farm, and forced himself through tight small talk with Louis’s mum before he raced upstairs, to Louis’ bedroom. The door was cracked open, and he could see Louis sitting on the floor, in front of his long standing mirror, just staring ahead at his own, and now, Alex’s, reflection.

Alex stood in the doorway, the draft letter in hand, and Louis didn’t even turn to look at him. He only looked at Alex’s reflection in the mirror

“I know what you came to tell me,” Louis said.

“How.”

He didn’t bother to make it a question. He was too tired for questions.

“I woke up today and the air felt wrong,” Louis swallowed, “Like there wasn’t enough oxygen in it. Like if I breathed in deep enough it was going to poison me.”

He closed his eyes, breathed in.

“When do you go.”

Again, Alex didn’t hear the question in it. Apparently both of them were too tired for questions.

“Louis.”

“I said when do you go.”

Alex sighed.

“In a month.”

Louis opened his eyes and looked over at him. His eyes were wet but his mouth was hard.

“I didn’t get a month before I found out my father would die,” he said, “I used to wish I could have known. But now I can just so I’m going to suffer more.”

Alex swallowed, and then slowly came forward, his boot clicking against the hardwood.

“Can – can I touch you?”

“Where?” Louis asked.

Alex blinked at him, not sure why Louis was asking.

“My door’s open, you moron. Don’t touch me somewhere stupid,” Louis supplied. Always reading Alex’s thoughts. Always at home in his brain.

Alex stepped back so he could grab onto the side of Louis’s door and push on it until it clicked closed. Louis just groaned and closed his eyes, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. Alex once again plodded over, his boots heavy with every step, until he was right behind Louis. And then he dropped to his knees and settled his hands on Louis’s shoulders, touching his lips down on the touch of his head.

“My Louis,” he said, “you,” he shifted his lips to touch the side of Louis’s neck, “are the love of my life.”

Louis snorted weakly, but it very quickly turned into a weak sob. He reached up and blindly reached for Alex’s fingers, squeezing them tightly. Alex squeezed back, and as he did he peppered small kisses to the same soft on Louis’s neck, like he was trying to seal the feeling of his touch there permanently.

“You say such reckless things,” Louis said, his voice still thick, “But I still like them.”

Louis swallowed, loudly, and then squeezed Alex’s hand again.

“Open your eyes,” he said, and Alex did. He lifted his head and he looked ahead, into the mirror, and looked at Louis’s overflowing, spring-day-sky-blue eyes, and he let his fingers be squeezed until he thought they were going to lose feeling.

 “It’s all your fault,” Louis said, then, softly, “It’s all your fault.”

“Louis – “

Louis ducked his head, out of Alex’s gaze, and then let go of Alex’s hand to bury his own face in both hands. His back shook, his gasps were loud and loaded with tears. Alex’s fingers grabbed at the fabric of his shirt, trying to anchor him, he pressed weak kissed to Louis’s back.

“Baby,” he said, “Baby, please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck,” Louis gasped out, and then lifted his head and looked at Alex, blinking wildly only to have more water flood his eyes, “Why can’t they fucking work it out for themselves? Why don’t we let fucking Chamberlain and Mussolini fight it out with sticks and stones if it matters so fucking much to them? Let my baby stay home.”

It made Alex laugh weakly, and he shook his head, swallowing hard. Louis laughed too, but it sounded even more hollow than Alex’s own voice. And then Louis grabbed onto the sides of his face and pulled him in close.

“I’m in love with you,” he said, “And I’m going to wait for you, no matter how long it takes.”

Alex opened his mouth, closed it.

He didn’t dare say it.

_What if I don’t come home. What if the only thing you’ll get from me is a handful of dirt in the ground. Standing with your shoulders back when you say I was a good man. Like I had to do with your father._

“Don’t make me wait too long,” Louis said, and Alex’s eyes snapped back to him. He could tell by the look in his eyes and the set of his mouth that he knew what Alex was thinking. That he had probably thought countless of the same things while he was sitting here, in front of his mirror.

“No, never,” Alex said, “I – I’ll be home for your birthday. Just pick a birthday, I’ll be home for it.”

Louis smiled weakly, and lifted his hand up to wipe up at his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay, fine.”

He just stared at Alex for awhile longer, and then squared his shoulders back.

“When I’m twenty-eight I want you home by then.”

“Alright,” Alex nodded, “That gives me – four years?”

“Yes,” Louis nodded, “Think you can manage that?”

*******

A month was too short.

Alex did his best to stretch it out and act like everything wasn’t falling apart. He did his chores at the same time, handled his market transactions, met Louis at the same times to do more chores. Louis, to his credit, also put in plenty of effort into keeping everything the way it had always been. He greeted Alex the same way, teased him in the same way. He kissed him for longer each day, and pretended the hay was bothering his eyes when he wiped away the beginnings of tears every afternoon.

Still, the letters with Alex’s ship-out information didn’t stop coming. The package with his uniform certainly didn’t stop. And by the last night of that month, he was alone in his room, Louis not even there with him, with a one-way train ticket on his dresser next to his folded up uniform.

It was nearly midnight, and Alex knew he wasn’t going to sleep tonight. Not when he could count the minutes he was going to leave, go into a situation he was never supposed to be in. He wasn’t supposed to be in war. He was a farm boy. He was supposed to get up with the sunrise and milk cows and go to the market until the day he died. That’s what he was meant for. Not to go to war when he was twenty-two.

Finally, he forced himself to get out of bed and went to the door, rubbing a hand over his forehead. He’d pour himself a glass of water and calm down enough to get at least an hour of sleep in.

He wandered down the stairs, down to the bottom floor of the house, and squinted at the light coming from the living room. When he finally touched down on the floor, he edged closer to the door of the room, and poked his head inside, just to see if someone had left on a lamp he now needed to turn off.

The room wasn’t empty, though. His father was sitting on the sofa, flipping through the farm ledger that was splayed open on his lap. He had a metal cup in front of him half-filled with whiskey, something he barely allowed himself to drink.

Alex risked coming inside the room, the floor creaking under his feet, enough to make his father look up.

“Alex,” he said.

“Hi, Dad,” he said, “Um, sorry, I just wanted to get some water.”

“Alright, then,” his father sighed, flipping through another page and rubbing his forehead, “Go ahead, then.”

Alex just nodded, even though his father was no longer looking at him, and started to turn to instead go into the kitchen, when he turned back to look into the living room.

“Dad?” he asked, and his father lifted his head.

“Yes?”

“You, um,” Alex sighed and rubbed his hands together, “You were in the trenches, weren’t you?”

His father just looked at him, and then dipped his head into a nod.

“Yes,” he said, “When I was maybe a little older than you.”

Alex nodded.

“How – “ Alex swallowed, “How did you stop being afraid of dying?”

He shouldn’t have said that. That was a weak thing to say, and what was his father going to remember him as, someone weak? Someone who couldn’t handle it?

But instead, the man on the sofa in front of him just sighed and shook his head.

“You don’t,” he sighed, “Alex, you don’t.”

He picked up his metal cup of whiskey and took a sip, and then settled it back on the table. He looked exhausted. Alex was the only child in the family. It wasn’t going to be easy to run the farm without him, or to go on pretending like someone wasn’t missing from the house.

“Although sometimes you have to stop thinking about it,” his father said, “Just push it out of your mind. I think Death can sense the people that are most afraid of it.”

Alex swallowed, and finally, his father lifted his head and motioned for him to come closer. Alex wandered into the living room, until he was standing in front of his father.

“Son,” he sighed, “The war you’re fighting has nothing to do with you, outside of the misfortunate you had to be born in this country. Don’t let them think it’s about you.”

Alex just looked at him, and his father looked back steadily. Alex had never thought he looked like his dad. He always had looked far more like his mum. But now, he could maybe see a bit of himself in his father’s eyes, the way his eyebrows knit together.

“Just survive,” the older man said, “You don’t have to be brave, just survive. That doesn’t make you a coward.”

He lifted up his cup, and held it out to Alex.

“Here,” he said, “Let me have one more drink with my son before he ships out.”

Alex nodded, and then took the drink, taking a swig and forcing himself to swallow it down without wincing. He hated whiskey, but he wasn’t going to let his dad see.

He let it burn in his throat as he swallowed.

Just survive. He could survive. He could do that.

His father took the drink back once Alex had finished, and then sighed and picked up the ledger once more, flashing him a look one more time with his tired eyes.

“Alright,” he said, “Go get your water, then.”

********

The train station wasn’t too crowded the next day. It was never that crowded, because even though it was three towns over, in the biggest area that was close by, it was still a small town, with not much reason to come or to go.

But there seemed to be plenty of men like Alex, dressed in their army greens and hugging their family goodbye, or swinging their girlfriends away and kissing them, making a small show out of it.

Alex’s parents had come, and Louis and his mum had tagged along as well, probably because Louis had convinced her it was a good idea. Alex’s mum kissed him on the cheek and gave him a little block of cheese wrapped in brown paper to eat on the train. His father gave him a firm clap on the back, giving him no more words after last night. Louis’s mum offered him a bag of apples, again, to eat on the train, and a soft smile.

When all the gifts were given out, it was just Louis, and he gave him a long look when it was his turn to say goodbye.

For a moment, Alex was afraid he was just going to give Alex a short handshake or something and that was all he was going to get to remember him by. But instead, Louis turned to Alex’s parents and his own mother and smiled.

“Can we have a moment?” he said, “Only got one friend, at least want to give him a good send-off.”

He smiled on of his infectious Louis-smiles, and it’s enough for Alex’s mum to nod, grabbing his father by the arm.

“We’ll wait over by the ticket stand,” Louis’s mum eventually says, and then they’re gone, leaving them on their own.

Louis swallowed, looking Alex up and down.

“You look handsome,” he said, “Your eyes look so green.”

Alex ducked his head.

“What if I didn’t get on,” he said, “What if I didn’t get on the train, Louis.”

“Then you’d be arrested for draft dodging. And what good would that do for us.”

Louis just looked forward, and then lifted his hands, like he wanted to touch Alex’s face, but then pulled his hands back.

“I’m going to see you when I get home,” Louis said, “Although maybe it would be better if you sat a season out. Your big paws always drop too many things, I want at least a few apples that aren’t bruised to death.”

Alex just blinked at him, and he wanted to cry, and he wanted to kiss him, but damn it, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t._

“I’ll write you every day, every second,” Alex said.

“Good,” Louis said.

“Maybe I can get leave and come home once,” he said, “I can take you to town, and we can listen to music at the pub. Your mum can make blackberry pie.”

“You’re the only one who eats my mother’s blackberry pie,” Louis sighed and shook his head, “You come home and do that. Sounds nice.”

Alex just stared at him. He felt his throat going thick, his eyes burning.

“What am I going to do?” Alex said, his voice shaking. He was a farm boy. He still felt too clumsy in his own skin. He wasn’t made for war. There was a reason he would never touch a draft form in peacetime.

“You’re going to survive,” Louis said.

There was no room for question.

“Can you feel if I’m going to live?” Alex said, “Do you know?”

“Don’t you dare ask me that,” Louis said, “Don’t you dare.”

Louis backed up, curling his hands up and tucking his hands into his arms.

“You’ll come home,” Louis said, “You’re going to fucking come home.”

“Boarding,” a deep voice called across the platform, “We’re boarding.”

“Go,” Louis said, too firmly, and stepped back, “They’re waiting, Alex, go.”

Alex glanced back at the steaming train, and then looked to Louis.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know why he was saying it, but Louis just nodded.

“You’re fucking forgiven, now go,” he said, “Alexander James, go, Christ.”

Alex just blinked at him.

He wanted to say he’d be home, soon. He’d take Louis to any music night he wanted. They’d go to London and see the city for the first time. Paris. A more peaceful version of it. He would make an empty promise to marry him, maybe, because that sort of thing meant both nothing and everything for them.

He wanted to say that he loved him.

Maybe, just maybe, he loved him so much that he wanted to tell Louis to find someone else if Alex ended this war pushing up daisies.

But there was no time, and no place for these words out in the open.

So Alex turned, and he boarded his train, and Louis stayed on the platform, his hands folded together, not even waving good bye.


	2. War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter triggers: period typical homophobia and slurs, Louis in a (brief and minor) sexual situation with a woman, mention of war violence, one brief mention of body gore associated with war, allusions and mentions of torture and imprisonment in a war setting, one very very brief allusion to Anti-Semitism. 
> 
> I'd like to formally apologize to my German professor for the poor state of the five words of German in this chapter. 
> 
> Alternating POV.

The first day without Alex was sunny. There’s sunlight hitting Louis directly in the face, warming his blankets, and it makes him whine and his nose twitch until he eventually wakes up. He blinks and looks outside, and for a moment, feels a moment of panic. It’s late. Well, not late. It’s probably eight or nine in the morning. But he’s usually supposed to get up at six and make sure everything is prepared for the day, start his share of the business, which is much more now, and then head over to the Styles’ farm by ten.

It’s then he remembered that there’s no meeting Alex this morning. There’s no soft, weary good-morning kisses in the barn and burrowing in Alex’s patched, down-lined jacket and having his cheeks held between Alex’s blister-coated palms before he breaks away and goes to milk whatever cow Alex hasn’t gotten to yet. There’s no pretending he hasn’t had breakfast so he can go inside and eat Alex’s mum’s fluffy scrambled eggs and push his foot against Alex’s under the table, catch his eyes in quick glances across the table.

There’s no dinner at each other’s tables tonight. So falling into each other’s beds in the evening. The sun will be the only thing warming his bed for awhile.

Slowly, Louis got out of bed and plodded across his room so he could find clothes, a clean work shirt and a pair of trousers, drawers and an undershirt. He put everything on and ran a hand over his tangled hair, and then found his boots and his braces so he could pull himself together for good.

There’s no one downstairs except his mum when he comes into the kitchen, but there’s toast and jam on the table and a pair of hard boiled eggs in china cups set out for him on the dining table. He sits down, and the scraping of legs on the floor finally makes his mum turn around.

“Good morning, darling.”

“Morning,” Louis mumbles. He tucks into his breakfast and doesn’t say anything, even when his mum puts a cup of tea in front of him, which is maybe a bit childish. He’s the man of the house now, the only reason they have a roof over their heads at all. And his mum probably let him sleep in and miss out on valuable work time because his best friend left him.

Of course, she just knows Alex as Louis’s best friend, not his lover, his entire heart stuck in another body. And he can’t blame her for not realizing that no amount of sleep in the world is going to stitch together Louis’s heart, which he can swear his fragmented in his chest, the four chambers barely holding together enough to keep his blood pumping.

He finished his breakfast and polished off his cup of tea, and then climbed off the chair and sighed as he took the plates to the kitchen, where his mum is still washing up.

“I’m going to go over to the Styles’,” Louis said as he kissed his mum on the cheek, “And help Al – Mr. Styles with the cows.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “You’ll be back soon, though, won’t you? It’s spring, the berries need to be picked nearly every hour.”

“Yes, Mum, I know.”

She gave him a weary smile, and he didn’t know how to say, I’m okay, I’m broken up more than I’ve ever been in my life, even when Dad died and left me with all of this and kept me from getting my own uniform and shipping off with the person I love more than anything in the world. I’m going to get up and keep working because that’s all I know how to do.

He couldn’t say that. He could only duck out the front door, letting the screen door slam behind him as his boots hit the dirt outside their front door.

*******

France isn’t very beautiful.

That’s all Alex can think of.

He remembered that Alex once laid on his bed, one arm propped up behind him, his shirt completely unbuttoned and hanging over his summer-tanned body. He hadn’t been wearing anything else, but he had his legs tucked up so Alex couldn’t see much. Anyways, Alex was sitting on the rug, staring up at Louis’s face and the way his lashes fanned out and cast shadows over his cheeks. It was probably just a trick of the old lamp in Alex’s room, whose light was butter yellow and patchy at best, but regardless, Alex couldn’t look away.

Louis had had a book propped up on his knee, countries of the world. He was in the F section.

“Paris sounds so beautiful,” Louis hummed as he turned the pages. It had inked drawings of different cities in France, and Alex watched them flash by as Louis turned the pages, “So does Nice. And Marseilles, and Lyon.”

“Mm,” Alex had hummed. He was looking at Louis’s eyes, the yellow light making his blue eyes look ocean-green.

“I’ve heard that the water is warm, and the houses are pressed right up against the streets, and all tall and have flowers in the windows,” Louis said, “And the food has so much butter in it, Christ.”

“Yeah,” Alex said blankly.

“I’ve heard that sometimes men can kiss in the parks,” Louis had said, more quiet this time, “Or hold hands in the streets.”

Alex had blinked up at Louis on the bed, and the other man had twisted around, his legs falling open to give Alex a show as he turned over.

“Come here,” he had murmured, shutting the book firmly, “Come up here.”

They had probably kissed until Louis’s laughs had turned into groans, and then they had probably fucked and drifted off in a tangled array of limbs, like they always did.

Alex didn’t know if Louis had talked about France because he believed everything in that old, dusty book or if he wanted to go there one day. Alex would write him a letter and tell him it wasn’t as good as one would imagine. That he would find a better place to take Louis if he ever wanted to get away.

It was raining, and he had to walk in a straight line, so he couldn’t avoid puddles that seeped right into his cheap, factory-made boots, wetting his socks. He kept his head down, enough that hopefully his helmet could hide most of his face. He could blend in, not cause trouble, and then leave.

He shifted his shoulders, the gun slung over his back getting heavy and making his muscles ache. He lifted his head enough to look at the man in front of him, but he couldn’t find much to focus on. They all had the same uniform, the same haircut that was cut too close to their skin. Alex just had to stare at the tip of the rifle on the man’s back as he walked like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Suddenly, there was a bang in the distance, and in an instant, the entire line fell into chaos as men sank to their knees and pulled on their helmets, some of them wrestling with their rifles so they could aim it mindlessly in the general direction of the bang. There was an officer up ahead, and he just glanced at him and clapped his hands.

“Up, lads, come on!” he shouted, “It’s too far in the distance to be for us, keep walking. Stand up!”

A few men glanced around, their lips shaking as they exchanged eyes with each other. Then, slowly, they got to their feet, and shuffled forward, their boots clicking on the cobblestones.

“Fuckin’ shit,” the man next to Alex breathed out, and he glanced over to see a man probably around his age, with dark brown hair. Or at least it looked brown. It was cut so short Alex could just see the roots of it. He gave Alex a brief glance, and he just scoffed and looked away, pulling his helmet further over his eyes, “I’m never gonna get used to that.”

“Yeah,” Alex said weakly, “Me neither.”

The man gave him another look, and then held out his hand.

“Payne,” the man said, “Liam Payne.”

“M’Alex,” Alex said, “I mean – Styles. Alex Styles.”

“Nice to meet you,” Liam said, and then dropped their joined hands and gave him a tight smile. The kind of smile that you could only share with a human being when you had both experienced the fear of getting shot by German gunfire on a town street in France on a rainy day.

Alex didn’t know how he could recognize that look now, but apparently, he could.

“Men, step in line!” the commander barked, “Straight lines, come on. England won’t win this war with messy lines.”

“Right, that’ll do it,” Liam mumbled under his breath, and Alex bit his lip to keep from laughing.

Instead, he just slipped back into the re-forming line of dark uniforms, and keep marching down the puddle-dotted street.

*******

After a month without Alex nearby, Louis had slowly started to get used to not having him around.

He was never going to be okay with the fact that Alex was no longer there, but he was getting by, and that was enough. He sat at his desk on the weekends and wrote him a letter every Saturday, and then would go to the post office on Monday to send it away. He had a few volunteers from other farms that would come over and help him when he needed, and he was busy with going over to their farms in turn. Plenty of families had their sons being shipped off, so everyone needed a help where they could spare it.

It was getting close to fall, and the apple trees were nearly bursting, to the point that Louis went out to the orchard twice a day to pick the fruit off, and even a few more times. He kept getting his bursts of feeling, although lately they just seemed to be letting him know an apple was about to be falling off a tree, nothing that might let him know how Alex was doing. Maybe that meant Alex was perfectly fine. Even if the feelings still didn’t feel anything, he liked to hold onto that hope.

Louis was taking his lunch inside on another hot early fall day, and was about to go out and pick more of the fruit up when he heard a gentle rapping on the door. Normally the men that came over to help him out had firmer knocks, and they had all already stopped by in the morning to help him then. He went to the door anyways, letting his mum keep tending to things inside. He opened the front door, leaving the screen up to keep the bugs out, and just stared at the person outside.

It was Amelia Samuels, who was standing on his front porch in one of her nice dressed, his red hair tied back and a basket covered in a little white and red handkerchief in her hands. She smiled when he saw him.

“Good morning, Louis,” Amelia smiled.

“Oh, hello,” Louis said.

Amelia’s family owned a farm down the street. Or rather, her father worked in town in the only law firm within miles, and her mother tended the garden and the chicken coop in the back garden to keep busy until her husband came home.  Louis had always thought that the eggs from the Style’s hens were better, anyways, and not just because the hen house was dark and hidden and sometimes Alex would smile with his hands up Louis’s shirt and play with his nipples until he whined.

Louis blinked and looked at Amelia, bringing himself back to earth.

“I just wanted to bring you some eggs,” she said, lifting the basket up, “Do you need eggs?”

“I – I guess,” Louis said, “Mr. Styles dropped some off yesterday. But it never hurts to have more.”

“Of course,” Amelia said, then blinked at Louis until he reached out and took the basket from her.

“Well, thank you,” he managed, and she nodded.

“You’re welcome,” she said, “Maybe I’ll see you again soon.”

“Maybe,” Louis echoed, but he was already closing the screen door, causing Amelia to take a step back, farther down the porch.

Louis went to the kitchen and settled the basket on the countertop, and his mother turned around with a smile.

“Did Amelia Samuels drop that off, love?”

“Yes,” Louis said, “I guess we’ll have plenty of eggs to go around.”

“Oh, that’s alright. I can cook something with them tonight for dinner,” she said, picking up the basket.

“Alright, that sounds good,” Louis nodded, “Well, I should go back out.”

“Louis, wait,” she called, despite the fact he was nowhere near the door. Louis still turned to look back at his mother.

“Yes?”

“Amelia, she’s a nice girl,” she said, “Do you talk much?”

“No,” Louis shrugged, “Not really.”

Johanna just sighed and took a towel off the counter, drying her already irritated hands.

“Louis,” she said, “You don’t have to put this off.”

“Put what off?” he asked.

“Finding a girl,” she said, “Getting married.”

Louis just blinked at her blankly.

“Why would I do that?”

“Well,” she shrugged, “You’re a young man now, I just thought that maybe you’d want to find someone to start a family with soon.”

Louis swallowed thickly, trying not to think of pretty green eyes and a rosebud mouth and big hands and someone that he definitely could not start a family with, at least not the kind his mum probably had in mind.

“I have to run the farm, Mum.”

“You can run the farm and do other things.”

He just stared at her, and finally, Johanna sighed and came over to Louis, settling both hands on his shoulders. She was shorter than he was, but looking into her wearing eyes, he felt so small.

“Louis, most men your age are dying in the fields right now. You can stay here. Don’t take that for granted.”

“I’m not, Mum,” he said weakly, “I – I’m working. I’m making sure you and the girls are okay. I’m sending food every week to the troops, God, doesn’t that mean something?”

“Of course it does,” she said, “But I just thought you’d maybe like someone to spend time with. Someone to talk to.”

“Why does it have to be Amelia, though?” he said, “Why can’t I talk to someone else?”

“Louis, please, don’t be difficult,” she sighed, “I’m just making a suggestion.”

Louis wanted to protest again, but he just looked at his mother, with her weary eyes and cracking hands, and thought about how she had lost her husband and narrowly avoided losing her son. And how the Samuel’s lived in a nice house and farmed for fun, not necessity. And how maybe his mum wanted him to be happy, but maybe there was a part of her that just wanted to see Louis marry a rich girl and get some of her father’s law firm money.

It wouldn’t happen. Louis wouldn’t let it happen. There wasn’t anything in him that made him think he could fall in love with a girl, but more so, there wasn’t anything in him that made him think he could fall in love with anyone other than Alex.

“Maybe I can take to her the movies in town,” Louis allowed, and Johanna smiled so widely every wrinkle creased deeply in her face.

“That’s wonderful, darling. The girls and I can make sure everything is okay for one night.”

“I know you can,” Louis said, and tried to swallow down how weak his voice felt. He ducked in and kissed his mother’s cheek, and then went towards the door, “I have to work first, though.”

*******

Alex got his tenth letter from Louis on the same day he saw a dead man for the first time.

He got his letter with his watery morning tea and his stale toast, and it was casually dropped in front of him like it wasn’t the most precious thing in the world to him. He kept all his letters from his boy in his pack, and even though they mostly said the most things – how things were at the farm, the weather, that he missed Alex and wanted to know where he was – he still read them over and over again nonetheless. He ripped open the latest letter and read it over, his mouth twitching into a smile as he read it over. Louis was well, the farm was good, Alex’s family was doing fine. Louis’s mum was apparently still trying to get Louis to ask Amelia Samuels out for dinner, something Louis had included in his last few letters, along with a note for Alex not to get jealous. Alex could nearly see Louis rolling his eyes as he wrote that part.

He folded his letter back up and tucked it into his pack, and then went back to eating.

“That a letter from your girl, mate?”

Alex lifted his head at the voice that seemed to be aimed in his direction. There was a boy his age sitting across from him, his hair sandy and his eyes a nearly colorless blue.

“Um,” Alex said, “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Thought so,” the boy smiled. One of his front teeth was missing, “You always smile like that when you get those letters. Figured it must be your bird.”

Alex frowned, and the other boy laughed and reached out a hand.

“Sorry. I’ve seen you around, I just forget to introduce myself,” he said, “M’Niall.”

“Alex,” Alex said. He squeezed the boy’s hand once and then let go.

“So,” the boy grinned, “What’s your girl’s name?”

“Ah,” Alex said, “Um, Lou.”

“Is that short for Louise?”

“Yeah. Yeah, but, that’s what I call...her.”

He linked his fingers together and leaned forward, settling his chin on his knees. He had had this conversation a few times before, when other soldiers had been talking about their girlfriends back home. He usually ducked out of those conversations early, because they were usually accompanied by brash laughter and men cupping their hands over their own chests, asking each other how big their girls’ chests were.

Thankfully, Niall didn’t ask him that. He just nodded and smiled.

“You’re lucky, you know,” he said, “Mine hasn’t written me in a month, maybe. I miss getting letters.”

Alex offered him a small smile, and was about to stand to go over and sit next to him, for nothing than a bit of companionship for a few moments. But then there was a loud shout from across the camp.

“Move, everyone move!”

Nearly everyone sitting around the camp sprang to their feet, jumping to the edges of the thin path that cut between the tents as two privates hauled a stretcher down the divide. An occupied stretcher.

A medic came out of the closest tent, waving at them to stop, and they dropped the stretcher only about a foot from Alex’s feet.

He reeled back, his body colliding with the canvas behind him.

The man on the stretcher had half of his body missing.

His face was gone of any color, his hands limp and his eyes rolled back. One of his legs was barely attached, loose and not filling up his trousers enough at the knee. Most of his belly was gone, replaced by red and nothingness.

Alex dropped to his knees and covered his mouth, squeezing his eyes closed.

“Why the hell did you bring that back?” he heard the medic snapping, “Did you think he had a damn chance? You could’ve left him.”

“He’s my friend,” one of the privates gasped, “We…we knew each other from home…”

“I don’t bloody care where you knew him from, I need that body out of the camp before it brings flies!” the medic said again, “Go, Jesus Christ.”

He heard another breathy gasp from one of the privates that had hauled the stretcher over, and then moving feet, and then he opened his eyes, the body was gone, all the people were gone. It was just him and Niall, looking shocked, his eyes too wide and too pale.

Alex blinked, but he still saw the body. It was stuck beneath his eyelids now, refusing to leave.

He covered his mouth again.

He wouldn’t tell Louis about this.

********

Louis was able to avoid bickering with his mother about Amelia until the girl came around with eggs three times in one week.

“We don’t need this many eggs,” she had sighed over the baskets that were piling up in their kitchen, “Please just go ask that girl to a movie so she stops bringing us eggs.”

It made Louis laugh, the ridiculousness of it, and it was enough to make him give in. He’d give Amelia a fair chance, and he’d work his way out of anything bigger later. The next day she came over with her final bundle of eggs, Louis asked her out to a picture in town.  She smiled and nodded, and he agreed to pick her up the next day, since it was a Friday anyways.

Louis had never been on a date before.

The only person he had ever been interested in was Alex, and they couldn’t exactly go out. Sometimes they would jokingly call their afternoons in town or even the barn and fields together dates, but they were. They weren’t like the date Louis was taking Amelia on. Louis didn’t get to pull up to the Styles’s farm in his truck and greet Alex at the door. He didn’t get to drive in and give up two dollars for two movie tickets and some popcorn. He didn’t get to sit side by side in a crowded, dark room, Alex’s arm on his elbow.

He did all that with Amelia. She was sweet, and she wore a pretty blouse and red lipstick, and she tried to make conversation on the drive in. It wasn’t a completely unpleasant evening. Not what he wanted, but pleasant. Bearable.

When they left the theater, Amelia reached out to hold Louis’s hand, and he let her, looking over and smiling at her.

“Did you have fun?” he asked, “Did you like the picture?”

“Yes,” she smiled, though it was a bit stiff. Maybe she could tell Louis wasn’t entirely there. He was bad at acting. 

“I’ll drive you home now,” he said, and took her over to his truck, parked in the town square with the other moviegoers’ cars.

The drive back was quiet, only filled by Louis tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as they drove. It was still warm, the air muggy and still filled with lightning bugs.

“Louis?” Amelia asked, the first thing she had said since leaving. Louis glanced over.

“Yes?”

“Can you, um, pull over?”

He stared at her for a while longer, and wanted to ask why, but figured it would be better if he just did it. He pulled off the road a bit, then turned off the engine.

“Are you alright? You sick?” he asked, and Amelia just shook her head.

“Um,” she managed, then lifted her head. They both just looked at each other for a moment, and then Amelia surged forward and grabbed Louis’s wrists, pulling his hands over the steering wheel. She tugged on him until he had his hands pressed to the front of her blouse. She had apparently untucked it from her skirt at some point, probably when Louis was getting the truck started back in the lot.

“What – “ he managed, and then she yanked on his wrists again and put them under his blouse this time, closing his fingers over the cups of her brassiere. He could feel how hot her skin was under her underthings, could hear the beat of her heart.

Louis just blinked at her blankly.

He hadn’t planned on this.

He didn’t know how he had expected to get out of this thing, but he had expected to do it before any of this proved to be an issue.

“Touch me,” she said, but her flat was voice, her eyes firm, “Can you touch me, Louis? I want to see what it feels like.”

“Um,” Louis licked his lips, tried to find something to ground him. But the rouge that was starting to melt off Amelia’s cheeks and lips from the humidity, distracting him, and the feeling of her cotton-covered breasts under his hands wasn’t exactly giving him peace.  

He had only known one body since he had been old enough to think about these things, and it had been hard planes and muscles, sharp collarbones and jawline, a deep voice and calloused hands.

He pulled his hands free of Amelia’s grip and out from under her shirt, and then balled his hands into his lap and pressed himself against his seat in the truck, breathing deeply as he closed his eyes.

He heard fabric rustling, probably Amelia tucking her blouse back in. He would just take a moment to collect himself, and then give an excuse. An excuse would be easy. He could just say he was waiting for marriage, that she had taken him by surprise.

Then he heard Amelia gasp wetly, and he opened his eyes.

Shit.

He turned and looked at her, with her hands covering her face, her gasps still heavy and wet.

“Amelia,” he managed, “I’m sorry.”

She just gasped weakly again, and Louis sighed, his fists gripped tightly together.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, “It’s not you. I – I like you. I just don’t think I’m ready to do that yet.”

Amelia just sniffled and glanced over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, “I’m not going to stay here long, anyways.”

“I – “ Louis frowned, “What do you mean?”

She lifted her hand, flapping it around like she was looking for something to point to but couldn’t find it.

“I’m not staying here, in town, for much longer. You won’t have to see me anymore soon.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“I’m going to have the church take me in,” she said, lifting a hand to wipe her eyes, “I’m going to become a nun.”

Louis frowned. Everyone in town went to church, mostly because it was the easiest way to share information, and everyone was poor enough that religion really clung onto to people. But while the Samuels were there every Sunday, he had never thought of them to be anymore pious than the rest of them. Certainly not enough for their daughter to consider giving up her life to the church.

“Don’t be mad at me for saying this,” he said, “But I don’t really…imagine that life for you.”

“Neither do I, really,” she shrugged, “But I don’t really have many choices anymore.”

“Is something wrong with your parents?” he asked, “You can tell me.”

She paused, and then lifted her head and looked at him again, her eyes firm.

“Can I tell you a secret, Louis?”

His throat felt tight and heavy, and he swallowed, almost afraid of what he was going to hear.

“Sure.”

“You won’t tell anyone?”

“I don’t have any friends, really.”

Amelia laughed weakly, and then it turned into another weak, wet hiccup, and she turned away from him, hiding her face with one hand.

“I’m a sodomite,” she whispered. It was quite, nearly swallowed by the rasp of her own voice and the chirping of bugs outside, but Louis still heard it.

“I – really?”

“Mm,” Amelia hummed and nodded, “I’ve never done anything. I couldn’t, there were no girls around like me. But…I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it and I can’t stop.”

She hiccupped again, covering her mouth.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she said again, her voice muffled by her own hand.

Louis just looked at her, unsure of what to do. He believed her, he did. This would be a stupid, dangerous thing to make up. The smallest whiff of a secret like this would destroy someone. Louis would know. He just didn’t know if he should tell Amelia that he knew. Just because she had shared her secrets didn’t mean he had to share his in turn.

Yet, he looked at her, covering her face and crying weakly into her hands, and he reached out and rubbed her shoulder.

“Amelia,” he said, “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

She just nodded, not looking up. Louis sighed, his voice shaking, and shook her shoulder a bit.

“Can I tell you something, too?”

This made her lift her head, and he could see her swollen eyes, her melted makeup as she nodded.

“You – you know Alex? Alex Styles?” Louis heard himself ask.

“Yeah, of course.”

“We’re lovers,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked, “For – for how long?”

Alex licked his lips, trying to count down the years.

“Nearly ten years,” he said, “Since we were kids.”

“Oh,” she murmured, “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah,” Louis said. He turned around, closed his eyes, “Yeah.”

“He’s at war now.”

“I know,” he sighed, “Jesus, I know.”

“Does he write you?”

“Of course. Bless him, that boy writes too much.”

Amelia hummed, and then spoke again.

“What…what are you two going to do?” she asked. He could hear the scale of her question. What were they going to do for the rest of their lives. Turn themselves, run away, hide?

“I think…I think we’ll stay here,” he eventually said. He didn’t entertain the possibility of Alex not being here anymore. Not happening. Not possible, “I think we could be happy here.”

“That’s…” Amelia said, “I’m happy you can be happy. I guess I was.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I thought about becoming a nurse, or a secretary for the army. I’ve heard other girls do that for…the reasons I would want to. But the war won’t last forever. The church will. And I’m happy with that decision.”

Louis nodded, and reached up again, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel once more.

“When are you going?”

“You mean how long before you can tell your Mum it’s over for us?” she smiled weakly, “I’ll be gone within a year. But you can tell her whenever you’d like.”

It made Louis laugh weakly, and then Amelia reached over, touching his arm.

“Thank you,” she said, “For being kind to me.”

“It’s no trouble,” Louis said, “I like you.”

“I’m sorry for making you touch my rack.”

Louis bit his lip, and then released it from his teeth and just let himself laugh. Amelia started laughing, too, and he reached over, holding her hand as they both howled in the dark cab of the trunk.

He didn’t remember the last time he had gotten to be this happy.

********

Spring was humid, and France was still ugly.

They had been walking for days, in smaller and smaller groups. Barely anyone was giving them instruction, and anyone a private raised their hand to ask where they were going, an officer would shoot him an exhausted look.

“Just keep walking, lad,” he would say, “Just keep walking.”

They were resting now, not in tents anymore. They had set up tarps in between the officers and the privates, but that were was no cover over them. If it rained, they could cover themselves with their coats. If bullets came…

Well. What was a few more men to England, if England even remembered them.

Alex sat up on his bedroll, gazing at the nearby trap. There was the light of a lantern glowing from under the gap of the fabric, casting yellow light and shadows against the tarp.

“They’re cornering in,” a voice said, “They have us nearly surrounded, they’ve claimed most of France, and they’re going to drive us off this bloody island or kill us all first, and we might not even get a proper rescue, not with all the resources that are being thrown around everywhere else.”

Another officer sighed, “Shit.”

“Uh-huh.”

Alex could see a cigarette dropped to the ground, a boot grinding it up and killing the last of the embers. He looked away, turning his head to meet eyes with the man sitting across from him, the only other one that was sitting up, not even bothering to sleep.

“What does that mean?” he said, and the man just sighed.

“Bloody fuckin’ Gerries have got us, don’t they,” he said, “They’re going to take Britain but they’re going to take us out first.”

Alex blinked, and then looked out to the canvas flap.

“So what’s going to happen?”

“Jesus, kid,” the man said, “Say your prayers, that’s what we do. We’re all fucked.”

The man was the same age as Alex, but he wasn’t going to say anything about him saying “kid.” He didn’t have the energy.

Alex just blinked up at him, shaking his head.

“I need – “ he said blankly, “But I need to go home.”

“Yeah, we all could fucking use that,” the man said, “Listen, just go to sleep, lad. I’m sure they’ll be herding us out to Dunkirk in the morning.”

Alex didn’t move, but then again, neither did the other private. Instead, he started rocking back and forth a bit, humming something under his breath. It sounded like a song, another language.

“What is that?” Alex asked, and he looked over.

“What?”

“What you’re singing.”

The private shrugged.

“It’s a prayer,” he said, then looked away, “An Islam prayer.”

“What’s that?”

The private groaned, turning his head to Alex.

“What’s what?”

“Islam.”

The boy snorted and looked away.

“A religion,” he said, “Not a good one, according to all of you.”

“All of us?”

“Never mind,” he said, “It doesn’t matter, anyways. Whatever God any of us believe in, He’s not coming for us now.”

Alex just blinked at the other private, and then turned forward and blinked against the tarp. One of the officer was putting out the lantern, washing everything in darkness.

Alex didn’t ask the other private’s name.

********

It was a long, bitter cold winter. Louis wore two coats to go out and cut up firewood, and then he had to take the truck to go to anymore other nearby farms, too cold walk there, even in half a dozen layers.

He thought of Alex more than a few times, hoped he was staying warm. He asked it every time in his letters. _Are you warm, are you safe?_

When it thawed into spring, it was a welcome change. Rain was even more welcome, because rain meant the soil would wake up, and the berries and bushes would come back alongside the fruit trees.

Amelia packed up and decided to move into the church early, to spend time there and see if it was the place for her. She came over to give Louis a hug and one more basket of eggs before she left, giving him one smile that felt packed of secrets before she left.

His mother didn’t ask him about any other girls. Maybe she had given up on the idea, or was willing to wait awhile longer. Louis made it clear he didn’t need to be married, and, selfishly, he felt a bit lucky that he had the option not to. He didn’t have to run to the church for a way out. He could just be alone to the rest of the world and come to Alex’s bed at the end of the day.

He didn’t want to think about a life where he was really alone and Alex wasn’t there. And most of the time, he didn’t have to. The letters came every week in the mail, in both the ice, the rain, the early spring heat.

_Hello, my darling._

_Hello, my sweet boy._

_Hello, my Louis._

_How are things?_

_Is your family alright?_

_Is mine alright?_

_Things are fine._

_It’s loud_

_It’s cold._

_I don’t sleep much._

_I miss you._

_I long for you._

_I’ll be home soon. Start counting the days for me._

_All my love._

_I love you, Louis._

_Love, Alex._

Louis kept his letters in bundles tied with twine, alongside his pens and paper and the leather-bound farm ledger. He wrote back the same day he got them, and sent them out with the next day’s mail. They were part of every week or so, the same as visits to the market and the bank.

And then, the mail went dry.

It was the end of May, close to summer. Close to Alex’s birthday. He would be twenty-four. Louis was going to send him a package. Spiced applesauce and clean socks and a letter five pages long.

But there were no letter for him, no envelopes with the familiar handwriting. Louis visited the post office constantly, asking if they were sure there was nothing there for him. He was met with looks of annoyance after three visits, sympathy after that, and then pity. He stopped visiting before it turned to suspicious. This was a small community. If Louis seemed too eager for a letter from someone who was only a friend, he didn’t doubt at least one person would risk a slap on the wrist to rip open Alex’s letters and read the sweet, dangerous words inside.

He started listening to the radio more. Chamberlain was leaving the Prime Minster post. Churchill would be stepping in. There were talks of the King going elsewhere, out of the line of fire. The Germans were winning, bleeding across France, the English barely clinging on.

Dunkirk. For a week, all Louis heard was Dunkirk.

He had no letters in three weeks. He wrapped up Alex’s birthday package and sent it anyways.

*******

The water had been on fire.   

Alex crawled onto the beach, gasping for breath. It was nearly dark now, and he was covered in oil and his nose was burning with saltwater, but he was back on the beach, back on land. He was nowhere near what he needed to be. He wasn’t on a rescue ship, or even a regular deployed ship. He had seen the boy from earlier in the week, the one that had tried to talk him down from that French boy earlier on. He had seen him swimming towards a little white yacht. But another man had knocked Alex out of the way and into a wave before he could swim up. He was left to float with the rest.

The water had been on fire.

He had swum until his arms ached, and then laid on his back in the middle of the ocean, his eyes closed. He could just float forever. But there was oil, and he had swim.

The water had been on fire.

He was on land now, sand gritty and clenched under his hands, and yet that was all he could think about.

He was safe, but just as abandoned as he had been all week, with even less hope now. Maybe he could hope that some RAF plane was touching down, or that a French ship would take pity on him and haul him away.

He lifted his head slowly, his vision blurry from having too much saltwater in his eyes. The beach was nearly empty, shadows shifting and moving in the evening light. But he saw the gleam of metal in the distance lighting unnaturally glinting off of it. Something was on fire. Something was burning. Something in the shape of a plane, and then a man in front of it, looking at it. And then, all at once, more men, hauling the first away.

Alex blinked once, and then looked at the shadows in front of him.

They started to turn into human shapes a few seconds before he felt a rifle pressed between his shoulders.

“Up,” a voice said, “ _Stehen Sie auf._.”

Fuck.

Oh, fuck.

Alex just blinked, and then he stood, slowly. He felt a hand grab his shoulder, tugging him back. He felt another metal barrel press to his back, and he couldn’t help it. He was crying. He was crying because this wasn’t fair. He was supposed to go home. He was supposed to be with Louis.

Oh, God, Louis.

“Please, Louis, don’t be angry with me,” he murmured under his breath, and the sound of it got him another jab his back with the barrel of another gun.

“ _Sei rubig_.”  

He didn’t know what it meant but it made him want to cry again.

“I’m praying,” he choked out, “I’m sorry, I’m praying.”

Maybe he should pray for real. He had a feeling whatever God there was wouldn’t listen, not when the first thing that he thought deserved his forgiveness was blue eyes.

The gun stayed on his back, and the hand stayed on his shoulder.

“Just take him,” said a voice heavy with an accent.

Alex looked up and saw the burning remains of the plane, the other man being led by more uniformed soldiers in the distance, slowly coming closer.

His shoulders were pulled again, and they were going.

********

Louis was walking down the hill of the orchard, with two full buckets of apples, when he got a feeling.

It was the worst feeling he had ever had, and it wasn’t just a sneaking suspicion of something bad, or something that would be written away. It felt like he had been plunged to the floor of the sea, like he had a gasoline-soaked rag over his mouth. He felt a sharp pain between his shoulders, and more a moment, he could hear his own voice in his head say “I’m going to die. I’m dying.”

And then in an instant it all passed, but he was left with shaking hands and unsteady hands.

Something had happened.

He felt himself let go of the buckets in his hands, and he heard them clatter to the ground, saw the apples spill out over the ground and tumble down the hill. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He just sank down to his knees and gazed out over the green, green hill, and blinked blankly into space.

“Alex,” he found himself murmuring, “What did you do.”

*******

The cell was blank, and cold, and colorless. It was made of grey brick and it was half the size of Alex’s bedroom at home, with the homemade quilt and the sunny window and Louis usually on the other side of the bed.

Alex had memorized every part of the room. The fogged over window, the crack in the ceiling. He has projected many images onto the walls to keep himself busy. Blue skies. Vanilla ice cream. Chapped lips on his. His only distraction was the cold food shoved under the door on a cold metal tray.

He had been there for sixteen days.

*******

Louis didn’t know where he was going. He just packed a suitcase with some changes of clothes and all the extra money he had, and tried his best to cobble a story together for his mum.

“I think I need to go travel,” he had said, “Everyone else gets to see the world. I can do that under some better circumstances. Maybe I’ll meet my wife while I’m there.”

He could tell she hadn’t swallowed it completely, but she took it. Farm hands would be hired, his sisters would keep the farm alive. They had turned over more than enough profits recently, and plenty of women were taking over business entirely with their sons and husbands off at war. They would be fine without him.

He made it as far as the train station, where he would finally have to buy a ticket, before he questioned what he was doing. What did you think he was going to do? Find Alex, rescue him from a war?

Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what he was going to do.

Louis bought a ticket to London, one way. It was as good of a guess as he had.

*******

They came and out Alex on the twentieth day. Two guards got him out of his cell, nearly dragging his arms to take him to another room.

This room was even smaller, and darker, and it just had a metal table, two metal chairs, and several Germans, one of which was sitting in one of the chairs. The man just smiled when Alex was shoved into the opposite chair.

“Good morning,” the man said, in crisp, if heavily accented, English, “How are we today? Getting good rest, I hope.”

Alex just blinked at him, and tried to remember what he was supposed to do if he was captured.

“My name is Styles,” he said, “I’m just a private.”

“Well, thank you for cooperating,” the man smiled, “How did you like France? Very far away from home?”

Alex said nothing, just looked down.

“Alright,” the German officer chuckled, “Tell me, where is your home base in Britain? Do you remember?”

“My name is Styles,” he repeated again, “I’m just a private.”

“He’s fucking useless,” he heard another officer scoff, but the man just in front of him shushed the other voice.

“Do you remember anything of the last week or so? Maybe some officers that were with you in France? Do you remember their names?”

Alex once more ducked his head, and this time, he tucked his head between his knees, his hands over the back of his neck as he rocked back and forth.

“I want to go home,” he choked out, and he heard the officer in front of him sigh.

“We will talk to you later, Private Styles,” he said.

Alex felt another rough hand on his arm, yanking him out of the chair and back to his room.

*******

Louis found himself in London, because he didn’t know where else to go.

The streets were busy, people buying jugs of water and enough dry food to keep them fed if the invasion came as so many had predicted. People were so busy, running to get trains or cabs, knocking shoulders with Louis without care.

It had been three days since he left home, and he still didn’t know why he was here. If Alex had been in the evacuated troops, then he was probably in the South of the country, and all the southern cities and roads seemed to intersect with London eventually.

He wandered down the cobbled London path, and used the money he had in his pocket to buy an apple tart and a coffee from a nearby vendor. The apples in the tart were tasteless, he could tell even if they were dipped in sugar and wrapped in fluffy dough. But he still devoured it, his face knit in disgust the whole time.

“You’re making me rethink if I should eat this,” a voice said. Louis glanced to his side, his fingers stuck in his mouth as he licked off the crumbs of his tart, and he saw a man about his age, holding a tart from the same stand. Dark, close cut hair, tall, strong body covered in a private’s uniform.

Louis straightened up.

“It’s not bad,” he said, “I just – I’m a farmer.”

“A farmer?” the solider repeated, smiling.

“I – yes,” Louis said, swallowing, “I grow apples. The apples in the tart aren’t good, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s a shame, isn’t it,” the solider sighed, and wrapped up the tart to put it in his pocket, not eating it.

“You can still eat it!” Louis burst out, and then closed his lips and shook his head, looking away, “God, shit, I’m sorry. I’m not mad, I promise.”

“It’s fine,” the solider said, making Louis look back up, “London makes people nervous, doesn’t it? Certainly does for me.”

“I guess,” Louis sighed. His eyes fell to the soldier’s chest, where his tags were shiny in the low afternoon sunlight. Payne, Liam. He couldn’t make out all the numbers that accompanied them.

“You can ask me what division I was in,” the solider said, “You don’t have to squint at my tags.”

Louis pulled back, rubbing his forehead again. How many times was he going to embarrass himself like this?

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m just – I’m looking for someone. I wanted to see if you two had any of the same numbers.”

“It’s alright,” the solider – Liam -- smiled. He had kind eyes, Louis thought to himself. Warm and brown, “A lot of people…say that to me, you know. That they’re looking for someone. I get asked about a lot of names.”

“Oh,” Louis said, and turned away, “I’m sorry to bother you, then.”

“No, no,” Liam laughed, “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. I don’t mind being asked. People just…they want to find other people, yeah?”

Louis nodded, his smile tight.

“Have you helped find anyone yet?”

“I’m afraid not,” the solider smiled, “But one more time couldn’t hurt, could it? Who’re looking for?”

Louis sighed and shook his head. It would be dumb to tell him. He probably had no answer, like he had had no answer for anyone else.

“His name is Alex,” Louis said, “Um, Alex Styles.”

Liam blinked and him, and then laughed.

“Well, shit,” he said, “You’re in luck. I do know the name.”

Louis just stared for a moment, and then surged forward.

“You do?”

“Well, sort of. I met him once when we were marching in the South of France, just for a moment. But, I remember him, yes. I’d been in the army for a week and no one had bothered to talk to him before then.”

Louis nodded. It was a crumb, but…someone knew Alex. Someone had met him, talked to him.

“Where did you go after that?” he asked, “Do you remember?”

Liam looked a bit apologetic, offering Louis a sad smile.

“Well, I went East and he went West, I suppose. Still France, though. Never bloody left France. I heard some of the recruits on that side have a set up back home now, outside of Oxford now.”

“Oxford,” Louis repeated, nodding his head quickly, “I – thank you, really, thank you.”

“It’s no trouble,” Liam smiled, “I’m glad I could finally help someone.”

He offered a hand, and Louis shook it, trying to blink back the burning tears in his eyes.

He would buy a ticket for Oxford.

He bought Liam another awful apple tart first, though.

*******

Alex had been on a train for the last day.

No one had told him, or anyone else on the train, where they were going. He had been roused from his cell in the midst of the inky black morning and shoved onto the steam-spewing train, surrounded by several other soldiers in dirty-looking English uniforms. Some of them were wrapped in thin blankets as they walked. All of them looked tired, too skinny. Alex didn’t try to talk to anyone on the train, he just slept, and then was woken again and pushed off the train towards a chain link fence.

A German solider with a rather blank smile greeted them one by one, saying the same phrase in English that sounded poorly stitched together.

“Be happy,” he said, “For you, the war is over.”

Alex just looked at him blankly when he was on the receiving end of the words, but he didn’t even get to ask him what he meant before he was pushed along by the string of people behind him, trying to get inside. He had the feeling that the German man wouldn’t have been able to understand him or anyways his questions anyways.

_Where are we? Are we going to die?_

They were checked in by other officers who wrote their names and ranks down, gave them a number for a dormitory building, informed them they would have a job soon. He just stared at them, but then shuffled along, towards what he hoped was his assigned building. They had given his number in German.

He grabbed onto another soldier once they were far enough away from the officer, and the man just glared at him, but Alex rushed on.

“Are we going to die?” he said.

The man scoffed.

“You a Jew or a faggot?” he said. His voice was rough with the ghost of too much cigarette smoke.

“No,” Alex said shakily. He thought of Louis, who probably wouldn’t mind him lying about one of those things.

“Then the Gerries don’t fucking care if you live or die, mate,” he said, “We’re just prisoners. Something they can trade with. Yeah?”

Alex didn’t believe him, and he shook his head.

“What if we stop being valuable? What if no one wants to trade us for anything?” he said, “Will they just kill us then?”

The other man just stared at him, then jerked his soldier away, glaring at Alex even more harshly.

“You’ll be killed a lot faster if you talk like that,” he snapped, and then stepped away, leaving Alex in his wake.

He walked in silence until he eventually decided to ask someone what _zwölf_ meant.

*******

There were no shortage of soldiers in Oxford.

Most of them were on leave or simply waiting for an invasion alongside everyone else, so Louis didn’t even have to loiter alongside the army camps for them. He could just go into any restaurant and talk to them. He spent most of his money on buying pints for the soldiers in the local pubs, hoping he could drudge something out of them. After Liam, he didn’t bother to beat around the bush anymore. _I’m looking for my friend,_ he said, _Alex? Alex Styles? Tall? Brown hair, curly? Green eyes? He has a scar on the back of his hand from where a chicken pecked him too hard once._

He got a few shaky leads, people who had heard Alex’s name or maybe seen someone that looked like him.

_I remember him._

_Kept to himself._

_Was always reading his letters._

_Carried a stretcher with him once._

_I don’t know where he is now. I’m sorry._

It had been four days in Oxford, and Louis needed to start rationing her “pints for soldiers” money if he wanted to afford his next train ticket.

But he still went back to one pub, just to get a drink for himself and weakly ask his same questions to some unfamiliar faces in uniforms. This time, no one knew anything, so he went to drink his pint at a table by himself.

And then, once he was almost at the bottom of his glass, a shadow crossed his table.

“Hey, mate,” an Irish voice said, and Louis looked up. There was a soldier he hadn’t seen before over him. He was young, his sympathetic, pale eyes, and when he smiled, Louis could see a gap where one of his front teeth should have been.

“Um,” Louis said, “Hey.”

“I heard you’re the bloke that keeps going buying the other boys beer so you can ask them about Alex Styles,” he said, “That true?”

“Oh,” Louis said, his shoulders dropping. He had a reputation. Fantastic, “Yeah. I’m sorry, though, mate, I really can’t afford to buy you a pint tonight.”

“No, that’s alright,” the solider laughed, “I actually just wanted to tell you that I knew Alex pretty damn well.”

Louis’s head lifted, his hands falling away from his sweating pint glass.

“You’re joking,” he said, and the solider shook his head.

“We were in the same camp for a while. We both had to see this dead bloke up close once, really fucked with Alex’s head. Mine too, if I’m honest. We hung around for a while, just kept each other company.”

“Oh,” Louis said, “Christ, I think you’re the only one I’ve talked to that’s seen him more than once.”

“Yeah. Bit odd, huh? Guess someone wanted us to find each other, then.”

Louis felt a little flutter beneath his skin. He hadn’t felt an urge, anything he could attribute to the same urges that let him pick fruit or feel when bad things would happen. But if it had hung in there with him and brought him to first Liam and now this other boy, then he would listen for it. He would trust his instincts, his gift.

“Do you know where he is now?” Louis asked, and the soldier’s smile faded a bit.

“Afraid not,” he said, “But I heard that most of the boys that didn’t get pulled out of France by the middle of May like I did went to the north of France. Most of them in Dunkirk. I’d check the evacuation drop-offs, a lot of the boys stayed in the lower part of the island once they got back if they aren’t discharged.”

“Dunkirk,” Louis repeated. Fuck. Had Alex been there? Surrounded for a week, shot at from all sides?

He wouldn’t think about it. He’d get a newspaper, try to find information about where the evacuated troops had gone, and then he’d be on his next train.

“Thank you,” he said, “Dear Jesus, thank you…”

“Niall,” the solider provided, “M’name’s Niall.”

He stuck out a hand, and Louis shook it.

“I’m Louis,” he said, “I’m Alex’s mate from back home.”

Niall just stared at him, his face shifting, and then he laughed weakly.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he sighed, “Shit…there’s no decent way to ask this. But…Alex was always getting these letters. Said they were from his girl, told me once he called her Lou.”

 _Oh_.

“You’re Alex’s girl, aren’t you?” Niall asked quietly.

Louis was ready to stand up and bolt out of the pub before Niall bashed his nose in, but the boy only gave him a gentle smile.

“I won’t hold it against you,” he laughed, “Wish I had known, actually. Could have told him I was the same way. I was waiting for a letter from my boy the whole war.”

Louis’s mouth opened, and it stayed open for a bit before he got a word out.

“You’re like us?” he asked, and Niall laughed again.

“It’s my first time meeting anyone else, too,” he said, “Aside from my boy, of course. Though I guess he’s not my boy anymore. He either got tired of me or shot down before I did.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis managed.

“Don’t be. My heart’s not broken too bad, so I figure it wasn’t meant to last,” Niall said.

He glanced over his shoulder, towards the bar, and then back at Louis.

“I’m going to go get myself a drink and then go back to camp,” he said, “But you go get a ticket South. Go find your boy.”

“I will,” Louis said. He stood, his hands shaking a bit from this news and also from the beer he had chugged down on an empty stomach, “Thank you. I know I told you, but thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Niall said once more, then flashed him another gap-toothed smile, “Now quit wasting time and grab a train.”

*******

Alex had been given a patch of dirt.

The soil in the camp was bad, but tomatoes grew, and they other prisoners were glad to have a farmer, someone to make food. The other prisoners liked him, and the officers seemed to like him too, mostly because he doesn’t make noise or complain.

It was summer now, the sun hot and high. Alex had learned more German in the last month and a half than he ever wanted to learn. Basic commands, numbers and dates, names of countries and cities.

He hadn’t been given any new clothes, and the threads in his uniform were starting to wear thin, the fabric going stiff from being soaked in sweat and then dried out over and over again. His belt was creased and breaking in places, and he had to notch it tighter for his trousers to stay on. His hair had grown, the dirty, limp curls falling into his eyes as his thin fingers dug into the dry soil.

Tomatoes, potatoes, a sun box full of strawberries outside an officer’s building that he was allowed to water once every afternoon. No cows or chickens, nothing to remind him of home.

But he had his patch of dirt, and when they ate tomatoes and potatoes in the dining hall at night, the other soldiers thanked him, their eyes flashing with something that resembled real emotion.

He still counted the days as he laid in bed, a different thing to count each time. Days since the war started, days since Dunkirk, days in the camp. Days since he seen his Mum, spoken to his Dad, milked his favorite cow in the morning. Days since he had seen Louis’s eyes, since he had kissed him, made love to him.

Each collection of days was too many. But he kept counting.

*******

Most of the soldiers in a seaside town in the most Southern tip of England Louis could go had left long ago. Maybe seeing the sea was no longer welcome after being stuck on a beach for so long. Maybe they simply wanted to go home. But Louis stuck around, once more asking his questions to anyone that would listen. Plenty of no’s, but he had stopped minding. He realized he was on a wild goose chase, and he was low on money anyways. He would only stick around for a few more days and then get a train back home, back to his life and responsibilities, regardless of if he got any real answers or not.

He spared the cash he did have, and instead ate the free meals that were served at the inn where he was staying. In the evenings, he went for days around the marina, watching the boats bob in the darkening water, the setting sun casting murky orange light onto their folded sails.

He wanted to dive until the ocean and swim and swim, listening to the itch under his skin until he swam right to Alex and took him home.

“Come home,” he whispered to the sea. It was the last night he was allowing himself to stay before he went home, “Come home, darling. I miss you. It can’t be that hard, is it? To go home.”

He just stared at the water, until the words faded from the inside of his head. He stepped back, his heels clicking on the cobblestones, and then shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking down the path.

Ahead, he saw two figures, skinny bodies in heavy army coats, a weak orange flame between their hands as they both lit a fag.

Louis stopped and stared at them.

He was tired, so tired. But he felt an itch under his skin, telling him he needed to go towards them. So he kept walking.

“Excuse me,” he called, his voice quiet and weak in the night. One man lifted his head, his dark gaze looking at Louis carefully. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, a stream of smoke leaving his mouth as he did.

“We don’t have any other fags, mate, sorry,” he said, his mouth choked in a thick Northern accent. Louis shook his head.

“I don’t need one,” he said, “I was wondering…if you knew my friend.”

The man laughed at him, his eyes mirthful, but the other solider slapped his arm.

“Fuck off, Malik, let him talk,” the other man said, inclining his head towards Louis, “What do you need from us, mate?”

“Um,” Louis licked his lips, “Were you two at Dunkirk?”

“Uh huh,” the first man – Malik – said with a weak grunt, and the other solider just nodded.

“Do you know anyone named Alex Styles?” Louis said, “He’s my mate, I’m just – I’m looking for him.”

“Well good fucking luck with that,” Malik scoffed, and once more, the solider slapped him.

“Can you shut up?” he snapped, “Just because you’re a fucking bitter son of a bitch doesn’t mean you have to be a prick.”

“Christ, Tommy,” Malik sighed, exhaling more smoke, “I’ve had a long day, leave me alone.”

Malik turned back to Louis and shrugged.

“There were plenty of men I talked to a few times and never knew their name. Styles could’ve been one of them. If he was, then I still don’t know anything about him.”

Louis nodded, rubbing his hands together. He still felt a twitch under his skin. His instincts wouldn’t have led him here if it had a been a mere dead end.

He turned to the other solider, Tommy, who had taken keen interest in the end of his cigarette.

“What about you?” Louis asked him. Tommy’s face shifted, and then he lifted the fag to his mouth, taking a drag before he answered.

“I knew Alex,” he said, “Yeah, I knew him.”

Louis lifted his head and took a step forward.

“And?” he prompted. Once more, Tommy looked away as he spoke.

“I didn’t like him,” he said, “I’ll say that much. He was…there was another boy we were with. Alex was pretty rough with him. I guess now, I can understand now. He just wanted to go home, the same as the rest of us.”

Tommy lifted a hand, dragging it through his hand, and then he let his hand drop again, leaning back onto the railing of the marina.

“We were swimming towards the same boat. This tiny little pleasure yacht. I would look behind me while I was swimming, and he’d be there. And then, suddenly, he wasn’t anymore. I saw him flailing in the water awhile later when I was on the boat.”

Louis blinked at him. His hands were locked tightly together.

“And? Did you see him again?”

“No,” Tommy said, “I – I looked for him on the train out. But he wasn’t there. I don’t think he got picked up.”

“So what does that mean?” Louis kept pushing, “Does that mean – does that mean he’s bloody dead?”

Tommy sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“You know him from home?” he said, and Louis nodded, “You know his parents?” Louis nodded again, “They get a death notice from the army for him?” Louis shook his head, and Tommy exhaled hard.

“Fuck,” he said, “I wished you had nodded your fucking head on that one.”

“Why?” Louis said, “He’s not dead, isn’t that – “

“Most of the men that didn’t get picked up got captured,” Malik cut in, “Your mate is probably a prisoner of Germany now, and that’s worse than being dead.”

Louis blinked at them blankly, and then shook his head.

“No,” he whispered, “No.”

“Oh, God,” Malik sighed, “Fuck.”

“He was…he was supposed to come home.”

“We all were.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s fair!” Louis snapped, “I – what, they’re just going to torture him? Keep him locked up? That’s what he gets? For doing nothing but being English?”

“Welcome to the second war of the world, kid,” Malik scoffed. And then he looked over, and he froze.

Louis was crying. He could feel the hot, silent tears streaming over his cheeks, but he was frozen, not making any sound, not moving.

He had thought he had come up with every outcome for this trip. But he hadn’t expected an answer this bad and a horrible, solid feeling in his gut that he had stumbled on the right answer.

“Fuck,” Malik sighed, “Kid, c’mere.”

Louis stumbled forward blankly, and Malik reached into his pocket and offered Louis a cigarette and a set of matches. Tommy opened his coat, and Louis silently dipped under the fabric until he was engulfed in cheap wool.

“I thought you said you didn’t have anymore,” Louis said.

“Maybe I lied before,” Malik said. Louis nodded, and put the cigarette between his teeth while he struck the match.

“To Alex fucking Styles,” Malik said as Louis settled the flame on the end of the fag. The smoke was horrid and bitter and burned his mouth and lungs, but he still breathed in with shaking breaths while Tommy held him inside his jacket.

He breathed out, coughing, and let the cigarette drop to his feet, feeling too sick to smoke anymore.

“You can still come home,” he heard himself whisper as he crushed the cigarette under his hell, “You can still come home.”

Malik and Tommy didn’t say anything, and Louis had never been so grateful for silence.

*******

It was the hundredth day since Alex had been with the Germans.

The hundredth and fortieth day since he had gotten a letter or any contact from home.

The two hundredth and fifteenth day since he had kissed Louis.

It was the third time Alex had moved camps, each of them providing him a new patch of dirt, because the officers kept passing it along that he was a farmer, he could grow food.

At night, he dreamed in patches of German, English, and the weeping, screeching French of a boy that he had almost killed. He dreamed about water on fire. He dreamed about lying on top of Louis and making love to him.

But the last dream was blurry, in fragments. So were his benign dreams about apple orchards and chicken coops, Christmas Mass and tea in chipped mugs, running on awkward, fifteen-year-old legs, laughing with lips that Louis had not kissed yet. The dreams were broken, with drained color, and they ended too soon, with more fire, more German, more gunshots.

He woke up every morning feeling tired to his bones, and yet never feeling sorry for himself, never wishing for anything more.

He had forgotten what home felt like.


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter triggers: PTSD and allusions to violence and torture 
> 
> Louis POV

Ten days after the war ended, Louis heard on the radio that all the English prisoners had been released from German.

He was standing in the farm kitchen, pulling a potato, the skins falling into the bin, when he heard it, and he promptly dropped both his knife and his potato to the floor.

Alex.

Alex, Alex, Alex.

It had five years since he had stood on that marina ledge, in another man’s coat, surrounded in darkness and cigarette smoke. He had survived five years of no letters and no news. He had thought too often that Alex had died. But now, he felt another itch under his skin, a flutter in his chest.

Alex was alive. He could feel in his bones that he was alive. And now he was free along with the rest of the world.

Louis stood, his foot kicking the forgotten potato as he stood up. He went to get his jacket from the front hook, and nearly ran to the orchard.

*******

Louis stood on the track for a week straight as the trains spilled in with returning soldiers.

Ever day, there were more army green coats coming out and running into the arms of mothers, girlfriends, their children. Louis sat quietly nearby, in his best jacket, with a small crate of apples in his lap. Just watching, waiting. The Styles hadn’t gotten a letter from the army saying if Alex was coming back. Maybe the army had no reason to say anything, not when the war was done.

Then, on the seventh day, Louis looked and he saw a man coming towards him.

He looked like Alex. He was tall, but his shoulders were drooped forward, making him look small. His eyes were green, but dark, and surrounded in shadows. He had on a patched coat, patched shirt, patched trousers. His hair was long, nearly to his shoulders, and he had a beard. Alex had never had a beard in as long as Louis had known him.

As he got closer, Louis thought he had a limp, but he just realized he was shuffling, his movements slow and frightened. He flinched when the train whistled blew behind him.

But then he was standing in front of him, and his eyes and his smile, as faded as they were, were the same. Louis’s hands shook so hard he dropped the crate of apples in his hands, making them spill all over the platform and roll off.

“You’ve gone and dropped my present, love,” Alex said, in a voice that sounded like a much more tired version of Alex’s voice.

But Louis still cried out weakly and then surged forward, throwing his arms around the older boy’s neck. Alex’s arms came up and held him, and he laughed weakly into Louis’s shoulder, his grip tight. Louis didn’t care if people looked. He didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care.

“Hello, my love,” Louis gasped into Alex’s ear, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Alex laughed. Louis felt the man’s hands shake, and then he slowly pulled away, still clinging to Alex’s shirt.

“You’re so beautiful,” Alex said, reaching out to touch Louis with thin, thin fingers. He pushed Louis’s hair back, and Louis just laughed weakly and shook his head.

“I missed you,” Louis said, “I missed you every moment.”

“That’s a very long time,” Alex smiled weakly. He reached out for Louis’s hand, and squeezed his fingers, “Thank you for waiting.”

Louis just looked at him, and he wanted to collapse into his arms and cry, because it had been five years, and Alex looked so tired, and so much older, and it wasn’t fair Louis was going to have a gap of five long, Alex-less he would have to remember for the rest of his life.

Then, he squeezed Alex’s hand back and managed to work his mouth into something that resembled a smile.

“Let’s go home,” he said, “I’ll have Mum bake you a blackberry pie and bring it over to your place.”

“My place?”

“Yes, Alex,” he said, “Your parents probably want to see you, precious. They don’t evne know you’re coming back. I – I waited every day here just to see if you’d come back.”

Alex just stared at him, and then shook his head.

“I am a very, very bad person,” he said, “But I only want to be with you right now.”

Louis looked at him evenly, and wanted to protest, to tell to be a good son and go home and hug his poor mother. But instead, he reached up and kissed Alex’s knuckles lightning quick.

“Okay,” he said, “Okay.”

*******

Louis’s mum nearly stuffed Alex sick with pie and roast dinner, and Louis just watched him sick and laugh weakly at his table, like he always had. He had on a clean shirt now, but his hair was still long, his beard still there, and Louis could see now he had lines next to his eyes that looked too deep. If he looked long enough he could see streaks of silver in Alex’s hair. He was too young to have those now. Unless he had been under so much stress his body had forgotten it was young.

After they had eaten, Louis took him upstairs, and went to run a hot bath.

“Come on,” he said softly, “Let me wash you.”

“Louis,” Alex sighed.

“Please, let me.”

“I’m not a child, I can do it.”

“Yes, but I want to do it for you,” Louis said, “Please?”

Alex just looked at him with terribly sad eyes.

“I look…different now,” he said, and Louis just kept his expression unchanged.

“Please,” he repeated, not making it a question this time.

Alex nodded, but he still turned his back to Louis as he undressed. He was so skinny, so weak. His body slumped in on itself, broken. There were bruises on his side that were still healing. Scars on his hands and arms.

He climbed into the bath, and Louis went to work. He dragged a cloth over Alex’s bony shoulders, his hollow chest, over his bone-cluttered sides. He kissed his skin, over his scars and freckles as he washed, spent too long washing his hair.

“Beautiful,” he murmured both to himself and to Alex as he washed, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

He cupped water in his hands and dumped it over Alex’s head, watching the other man lift up his head to receive it, like a child at baptism. Louis scrubbed his body down with more soap, and then pulled the plug out and helped Alex out of the bath. He dried him down as best he could, and then sat him down on the toilet and opened the bathroom cabinet to get his shaving things.

“I don’t recognize you with that beard, baby,” he said, “Can I shave it?”

Alex nodded slowly, and Louis smiled softly and kneeled in front of him.

“Look at me,” he ordered softly, and Alex did. Louis wet his face, then brushed on the shaving foam and brought the blade up, dragging it carefully over Alex’s skin. The hair came off slowly, revealing pale, smooth skin underneath. Louis kissed the patches of skin as they were revealed, then went right back to work. When he was completely done, he wet a rag and scrubbed down Alex’s face, revealing his smooth skin. He almost looked like Louis remembered him, aside from the tiredness in his eyes that Louis was afraid would never quite go away.

“There you are, darling,” Louis smiled, but Alex didn’t return it.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked, and Alex’s eyes shifted, like he hadn’t been paying attention but was now back down to Earth.

“I – “ he said, “Did I miss your birthday?”

Louis frowned at him, tilting his head.

“What?”

“You made me promise I’d be home before you were twenty-eight,” Alex said. His voice started to shake, “Did I miss it?”

“Oh, darling,” Louis sighed softly. He squeezed the rag between his hands hard enough for some of the water to wring out onto the floor, and then he reached out a hand, stroking Alex’s cheek.

“Alex, baby,” he said, “ _You’re_ twenty-eight now.”

Alex just looked at him, no understanding sparking in his eyes.

“I’m going to be thirty-one in two months,” Louis said, still petting his face, “But I’m not angry with you. I’m just glad you’re home.”

“Th – thirty one,” Alex repeated.

“I know, baby,” Louis said, “We’re old now, huh?”

Alex just stared at him, and then, softly.

“I missed it.”

“It’s okay, I’m not angry.”

“I – it’s been five years,” he choked out, “Shit, Louis, I left you alone for five years.”

“I’m okay,” he said, “I promise I’m okay.”

“But – “ Alex started, and then his lower lip started to quake, “I’m not.”

“Oh,” Louis said, “Oh, my love.”

Alex leaned forward, and Louis reached up and caught Alex’s too-light weight in his arms, and let the man crumple around him and weep into his shoulder. Louis kissed his temple and pet his back, murmuring to him the whole time.

“I know,” he whispered, “I know, baby, I know.”

He pulled his fingers through Alex’s long, long curls, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“The world is too cruel for my sweet boy,” he said, “You didn’t deserve whatever they did to you.”

It made Alex sob loudly again, and Louis just kept holding him, kept rocking him back and forth, back and forth, while his lover’s hair soaked through his shirt and Louis kept a foam-covered razor blade firmly in one hand.

*******

Alex went to his parents’ house once he was done crying, and he didn’t come back for three more days. When he did, he just asked Louis to cut his hair, and Louis cut at it with a pair of kitchen scissors and a razor blade until it was back to the length he remember. He kissed Alex’s forehead once he was done, and then Alex gave him a sad look and went back to this own home.

Louis let him go, even if he wanted to beg and plead on his knees for him to stay.

“I waited too long,” he wanted to say, “Don’t run away from me.”

But he loved Alex down to his soul, and he had already waited five years for him to come back. A few more wasn’t going to kill him.

*******

Alex found Louis in the orchard.

Louis wasn’t working, he was just sitting on the hill, looking out onto the rest of the farm. It was a mid fall day, and the wind was crisp and sweet and thick with the smell of ripe apples.

Alex walked up the hill, and Louis could see him coming, dressed in a blue shirt and his work trousers and his old boots. Everything about him was the same. And then he came and sat down next to Louis and he was struck with the fact that things weren’t.

“Louis,” Alex said softly, and reached for Louis’s hand. He brought it up, kissing his knuckles, “I thought of you every day.”

Louis squeezed his eyes closed as Alex spoke.

“I’m not mad at you. I don’t hate you. I’m just so scared of you. Don’t you see?” Alex said, “Louis, I – I feel so different. They broke me down like a fucking horse, baby doll. And I don’t know if I can be whole again. For you, for anyone. And I don’t want you to have to put up with me your whole life, not when I’m so damn worn down.”

Louis swallowed hard, and squeezed Alex’s hand.

“What did they do to you?” he asked quietly.

“They didn’t torture me,” Alex said, “They just worked us. They did everything short of torture. Everything short of making the war worse.”

Louis nodded, and then turned, catching Alex’s eyes. He reached out and tucked his hand into the man’s hair.

“I am going to grow old with you,” he said, “I have known that since I was seventeen years old. You, Alexander Styles, do not get to taken that away from me. You understand?”

He lifted a hand and pressed it hard to Alex’s chest, his eyes nearly spilling over with tears.

“The world tried to take you away from me. And I sat here for five years with a itch under my skin telling me you were alive, and sometimes that was the only thing that kept me going. You do not get to come back and tell me I can’t have you. Do you fucking – “

Louis tapped Alex’s chest, his chest constricting.

“ _Do you understand me_?”

He was crying now, and then collapsing into Alex’s arms. He felt the other man wrap his arms around him as Louis cried into his arms, feeling so small and weak, just as he had all those years ago when Alex had gotten his draft letter.

“I don’t care if you’re in pieces. I’m in pieces. All of fucking Europe is in pieces. Just let me have your pieces. I don’t even care if they fit together.”

He burrowed even deeper into Alex’s chest, and Alex gripped onto the back of his shirt.

“Louis,” he said, “Louis, my love. The only person I will ever love.”

Louis choked weakly, and Alex held him more firmly, nearly gathering Louis into his lap.

“I nearly forgot what you looked like. That was the worst thing they did to me, more than anything else. Made me forget what you looked like.”

Alex started rocking Louis, the same way Louis had done to him on his first night back, in the washroom.

“I am so sorry for almost forgetting,” he whispered, and Loius had to laugh.

“I forgive you,” he said, “I forgive you a thousand times over.”

Alex breathed shakily above him, and then pet Louis’s hair.

“I thought about something while I was in the prisoner’s camp,” he said, and Louis cringed a little at the last two words, but nodded into Alex’s shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“That I want to marry you,” Alex said simply.

Louis didn’t even budge, or laugh, or do anything.

“Did you ask my mother first?”

“Yes. She gave me her blessing.”

“Did you buy me a ring?”

“Yes. I couldn’t afford a diamond, so I got you a sapphire, the same color as your eyes.”

“And when would we get married? Spring?”

“Now. Right now. In this orchard,” Alex said, “Would you marry me?”

“Is there a priest? Is there a witness?”

“No. But there’s the earth, and the sky, and the apple trees, and I think they know us best of all.”

Louis kept his eyes closed, and Alex rocked him more as he spoke.

“I, Alexander James Styles, take you, Louis William Tomlinson, to be my lawfully wedded husband. I promise to cherish you, and honor you, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.”

He kissed Louis’s forehead as he said the last words.

“I do,” he said, kissing him once more, “I do, I do, I do, Louis, I do.”

Louis sniffled, trying to swallow down his tears.

“I missed you so much.”

“I know.”

“I’m so in love with you,” he said, “I want to be buried with you in this apple orchard. I want the earth to hear all the times our ghosts whisper ‘I love you’ to each other.”

“We can figure that out later,” Alex said, “First, I want to marry you in this orchard. But you have to say it, too.”

“Stay here,” Louis said, “Stay here, on our farm. Live with me, live with my family. Be my husband. Let me have you.”

“Louis – “

“We’re married. Let me be married to you,” Louis said, “Please, Alex, let me be married to you.”

Alex was quiet, and then Louis interrupted the silence.

“I, Louis William Tomlinson, take you – “

Alex started crying, softly, all air and hiccups, and Louis lifted his head, kissing his tears away between the words.

“Til death do us part,” he breathed, “I do.”

He looked at Alex, with his dark eyes and his hollow cheeks and his lined face, and he felt the air level around him, the earth settle. For a moment, everything was in balance, and beautiful, and perfect.

 _I am going to spend the rest of my life being in love with you,_ he thought to himself. Alex’s face twitched like his own brain had received Louis’s thought.

Louis leaned forward, and breathed over Alex’s lips “I do” before he fully kissed him, Alex’s lips dry and tasting like salt. The other man pushed into the kiss, and then gripped Louis’s back, and pushed. Louis shrieked in surprise as Alex pushed him to the ground, and kissed him, Louis’s face covered in his own tears and Alex’s mouth and the wind.

“Alex,” he laughed weakly, “Alex.”

“My husband,” Alex said, “Louis, you’re my husband.”

“Yes,” Louis nodded, reaching up to cradle Alex’s cheek in his hand, “I am, precious.”

Louis blinked up at him, then shook his head.

“You are not allowed to fuck me in this orchard,” Louis said, “That’s an awful honeymoon.”

“It’s a perfect honeymoon,” Alex said, “I kissed you for the first time here. Let me make love to you here.”

“No,” Louis said, “The trees are too innocent to see that.”

Alex frowned, and Louis scoffed.

“Don’t pout at me, Alexander Tomlinson.”

Alex’s mouth twitched.

“Is that my name now?”

“Obviously.”

Alex just shook his head, smiling, and then, slowly, the smile faded, and he just looked at Louis.

“What now, my love?” he murmured, “What now?”

Louis just looked at him sadly, and stroked his cheek.

He could hear the ache in the question, the uncertainty, the fear. What would they do for the rest of their lives, with only the knowledge of how to work on a farm and how to hurt. How would they survive a world that did not accept a marriage of two men in love, observed by the sky and the trees. What would they do if they cut themselves on each other’s broken pieces.

“Now,” he said, with the wind tickling his mouth, “We go live.”

*******

Alex came over nearly every night, the same way he always had, to make love to Louis or to just kiss him and lay with him, to hold him in his arms. Louis was woken often by Alex shaking and mumbling about water on fire and dry dirt and saying something that sounded like German. Sometimes he would scream. Louis would just grip his shoulders, pet his skin, kiss him until Alex laid back onto the mattress. Sometimes he couldn’t lay back down, he would just go downstairs, and Louis could come down an hour or two later to find Alex on the sofa, reading a newspaper and drinking a glass of water. He would kiss him on the top of the head and then go back to bed, letting Alex be alone for a little while.

Alex stayed the night of Louis’s thirty-first birthday, and then didn’t leave after that. He told his parents he wanted to move out, to go live with the Tomlinsons now and make his life there. His mum came over to talk to Louis, with a sad smile on her face as she held Louis’s face in her thin hands.

“He is so fond of you,” she said, “I cannot hold onto him forever. I just ask you take care of him.”

Louis couldn’t tell her that he was in love with Alex, or that he had promised his life to the other man, or even that Alex was the most precious thing in the world to him. He just nodded and said “I will” as firmly as he could.

Alex brought all his things over, his clothes and his favorite books and the trinkets from his room.

“I lost the letters you wrote me,” he said when he opened one of Louis’s drawers, reading to put his clothes away, and saw a neat box of Alex’s letters in the corner of the drawer, “I lost my pack in Dunkirk.”

“It’s okay,” Louis said, coming forward to hold Alex before he could cry, “It’s okay.”

Alex cried anyways, and Louis let him. Alex cried over random things now. Thunder, campfires, tomatoes. Louis just let him, and held him when he could. Sometimes Alex would tell him why he was crying, sometimes he would just let the moment past and then move on.

Louis had grown to accept he was no longer going to know every part of Alex. That were some very dark, scary things buried inside the man he loved that he might never understand, but he was going to be there when those things got the best of Alex.

For better or for worse.

*******

Five years after Alex moved in for good, Louis’s mother sat him down at the kitchen table one afternoon.  

“Louis,” she smiled at him, her face a bit sad, “I’m going away.”

Louis just looked at her, not understanding.

“Going away? Where?”

“To live with your uncle,” she said, “Your aunt is sick, they need my help. And besides, there’s no place for me here anymore.”

“Yes, there is,” Louis said, “You’re my mother. There’s always place for you here.”

“Louis,” she cut in, “Let me speak. Your sisters are all either engaged or married now. You’re a grown man, and you and Alex…this is your life now, your home. I want to let you have it.”

Louis opened his mouth, a bit of a chill going through him. Did his mum know? Did she understand exactly what Louis living with Alex meant?

But his mother just patted his hand and smiled softly.

“Please,” she said, “Please, let me give you this.”

Louis swallowed. He knew. He knew that his mother knew what he was doing with this life, and with Alex, and she was letting him. She was going to give him the house and the farm and the orchard. Let him make a life with him and the man he considered his husband.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to explain what he already knew. He just whispered his mother’s wrinkled hands and said “Thank you. Thank you, I love you” against her skin.

*******

“My love,” Alex said, “It’s time to wake up.”

Louis opened his eyes to see Alex hovering over him, his warm hand on Louis’s bare belly. He felt a weight on his legs, small and warm. The cat they had found in the field with the bad paw and taken in.

“Why,” Louis croaked out.

“Because it’s time to milk the cows,” Alex said.

They had bought cows from Alex’s family five years ago, and now had their own small collection. A chicken coop, too, in addition to everything else. They had neighborhood kids come over and help them in exchange for some company. Louis still thanked God the parents let their kids visit him and Alex, even if the rumors still rang out about the Tomlinson and the Styles boys, the ones who lived together in that house after all those years, both unmarried and with only each other. Everyone knew what that meant. But they also knew that the Louis and Alex loved children, loved to take them up the orchard so Louis could show them the best apples, or to the barn so Alex could teach them how to be gentle with the cows’ udders. Maybe they also felt a little bad for Alex, because his hands still shook sometimes and he still had lines in his face too deep for a man that was only forty-five. Poor Alex Styles. Never got over getting captured. Never left town.

They had talked about it countless times. Up and leaving, going somewhere far away. But they knew how to run a farm, and how to love each other, and how to heal, slowly, one second at a time. They had no where else to go. And they couldn’t take the apple orchard with them, which remained Louis’s favorite place to lay in the grass and kiss Alex after a hard day of work, their lips sticky and tasting like apples. Deliriously in love.

“Can you do it?” Louis groaned, and Alex laughed and kissed him.

“Come on, old man,” he murmured, “Get out of bed and help your husband.”

“You can’t say that every morning, you know,” Louis said, even as he sat up, moved their cat, and swung his feet over the bed and onto the hardwood floor.

“And yet every morning it works,” Alex laughed.

He went across the room, and got his clothes out, his work shirt and trousers and boots. Louis watched him, smiling, and then went across the room and opened his own drawer to get dressed.

“Hey,” he said softly, and Alex lifted his head and looked at Louis with a sweet smile.

“Let’s go to the orchard first today,” Louis said. Alex lifted his brows and paused as he buttoned his shirt.

“Why?” he asked, his voice tilting and teasing already. He didn’t need to know why. He would indulge Louis to the ends of the earth. But Louis still smiled at the question.

“I want to go pick the best apple of the season.”

Alex looked at him, and then grinned, reaching out to hold Louis’s waist.

“Is is here already?”

“Yeah,” Louis smiled, “I can feel it.”

He still felt the itch under his skin sometimes, telling him when things would happen. It never failed him with those apples, but otherwise, it stayed quiet. Maybe he had stopped aching for things. Maybe his body had released he was at peace and didn’t need to know when things would happen to him.

But he was glad he still had his itch, if only for the smile Alex gave him now as he leaned down to kiss him.

“I love you,” Alex said when he pulled away, like he did every morning. Louis still closed his eyes, let the words seep into his skin, swim in his veins.

When he opened his eyes, Alex was still there, solid and real, with shaking, scarred hands and a knitted-together soul, and Louis just reached out and touched his face, feeling the multiplied wrinkles in his skin.

“Come on,” he whispered to his husband in their cold, dark bedroom, with no one else but the walls and an injured barn cat to hear him, “I’ll let you have the first taste this year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full prompt:  
> "A back and forth POV through the war. Louis and Alex are secret lovers through their teenage years, their families were farm neighbors while they grew up or something. Alex gets shipped off because its expected, Louis stays behind since he's been running the family farm since his father had died the year before.
> 
> Alex finds himself at Dunkirk beach and everytime he makes it on a boat or thinks hes in the clear, disaster strikes and he's struggling for his life and finds himself back on the beach again. Eventually he's picked off the beach and taken POW.
> 
> Louis hasn't heard from his love and fears the worst, goes on a quest to find him. He keeps finding fellow soilders who saw him on this ship or that boat, who was with him in a line on the beach, who volunteered to carry wounded soliders with him, etc etc etc. Each can tell him a specific detail so he knows they aren't mistaken but none of them can say exactly where he ended up but it was never with them.
> 
> Enter emotional reunion when Alex finally makes it home years later, broken but still fighting to make it home.”
> 
> Most of my writing about Alex’s experiences in a POW camp came from this article: http://jmvh.org/article/experiences-of-a-prisoner-of-a-war-world-war-2-in-germany/
> 
> Thank you for reading. I love you very much, please consider leaving some kudos or comments, they’re better than hugs. And I really love hugs.


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